


Fifteen Years

by Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi



Series: Laris and Zhaban [2]
Category: Star Trek
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22831597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi/pseuds/Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi
Summary: Snapshots of the fifteen years Laris and Zhaban spend on Earth before the start of Picard
Relationships: Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard, Laris/Zhaban (Star Trek)
Series: Laris and Zhaban [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1715068
Comments: 27
Kudos: 52





	1. Year One

Earth had been a difficult place to settle into. 

Whilst it was mandatory for every Romulan on an evacuation ship to be assessed by Starfleet, to ease the general public’s fear of them and to find a good place for them to be relocated, Laris and Zhaban were lightly interrogated. Starfleet did have rules against almost anything they were taught as part of the Tal Shiar, barring the secretive Section 31, they were allowed to ask questions. Laris lost track of how many questions they asked her in those first few weeks. None of it was particularly concerning; they knew nothing of the Tal Shiar and only touched upon secretive subjects by sheer dumb luck, but it was tiring. 

The worst of it was being kept separate from Zhaban. Logically, it made sense. If there were any lies in their stories, they wouldn’t be able to check details with each other and Starfleet would catch on. Obviously, they had a story worked through to the minutest detail before they even got on the ship. Laris was willing to bet Starfleet knew that. And whilst their story wasn’t a concern, and even though they’d been apart for months with no contact in their previous lives, it was unnerving to be apart from him whilst on a new planet, starting new lives.

“Well then,” the lieutenant who had been assigned to her started in what she would soon find out was their final meeting. “You’ve been cleared for relocation. I’m sure you’re thrilled to hear that.”

Laris gave the woman a tight smile. 

“Your husband, he was cleared last week, has informed us that you have work and accomodation already organised, in France, I believe,” she continued. Laris wasn’t surprised that Zhaban had been cleared first. He gave off a far friendlier impression, though that was rarely true, and he would have played into it during the interrogations. 

“Yes,” Laris replied, when it seemed like the other woman was waiting for a response. The lieutenant gave her an awkward look.

“La Barre,” she continued. “Your employers are Admiral Picard and Captain Crusher, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful. You’ll be transported in two days’ time, the Admiral has agreed to meet you at the transport bay at that time. Do you have any further questions?”

“No.”

“Great, well, I’ll just walk you to your temporary accommodation. Obviously your husband is already there.”

It was a short walk. The lieutenant seemed to have finally learnt, after weeks of interviews, that Laris preferred not to talk when she didn’t have to. Upon reaching the building, Laris noticed that almost all of the occupants were Romulans whilst the rest were Starfleet, all low rank. She wasn’t sure for whose ease of mind they were there for, Romulans or the general public, but they were trying something, which was better than what the Admiral had implied to them in their talks. Laris had no doubt that Starfleet wouldn’t send much more help than they had already offered. 

Their room was on the fourth floor, the lieutenant leaving her by the stairs, and Laris was relieved to have the chance to exert herself again.

The second she was in the room, door firmly shut behind her, Zhaban rushed over, hugging her tightly and kissing her temples and forehead. It wasn’t a particularly dramatic show of affection for most people but for former Tal Shiar, it was a very big thing. Laris responded in kind, hands grasping at his shirt to keep him close, and pressed a kiss to every patch of skin she could reach. They remained in each other’s arms for a very long time.

“Did your talks go well?” Zhaban asked her eventually, not letting go. “They only told me you were cleared an hour ago.”

“They certainly didn’t learn anything they didn’t need to,” she replied. “What about you? Waiting here for a week couldn’t have been fun.”

“Most of the adults have been recruited for supervising the children. I’ve had a shift once a day to keep me occupied. Talks were fine. I think they just wanted to get rid of me.”

Laris took a few deep breaths, taking in the familiar scent of her husband, before stepping back and examining the room. It was decently sized, a little small for two people but they weren’t staying long, with a bed, a desk, some chairs and a wardrobe. Their bags were neatly packed next to the bed and disruptors were hidden in a few safe spaces, those last two being done by Zhaban. It was fairly standard accommodation and she could tell Zhaban had already checked for surveillance devices but she still glanced around just in case. They could never be too careful now.

“Are you tired?” he asked, arm around her waist. 

“No. A little hungry.”

“Lunch is in about an hour,” Zhaban offered. Laris grinned, turning to face him again. 

“What ever shall we do for that long?”

He kissed her properly, their first kiss in weeks, and for a few moments Laris was content to stay like that. Attachment was strongly advised against in the Tal Shiar, but they had never quite fit the mould of a perfect soldier, and in situations like that they both readily admitted it to themselves. Eventually it deepened and they moved towards the bed, always in tune with each other’s movements. The edge of the bed knocked into the back of her knees and Laris leant back, pulling Zhaban with him. A little bit of shuffling around and they were lying on the bed, wrapped in each other.

“Missed you,” Zhaban mumbled into the crook of her neck, placing kisses there. “It’s been difficult here.”

“Outsiders giving anyone trouble?” she asked, running her fingers through short cropped hair. 

“Most of us don’t leave the building, just the ones who don’t look too Romulan, but it’s a lot to adjust to. A lot of the children don’t understand what’s going on and no one wants to be the one to tell them.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to understand it even if someone did,” Laris replied. She kissed his forehead, nuzzling against one of the ridges, and met his gaze, knowing what he was thinking. “I don’t think we’re in a position to be offering to raise one.”

“We don’t have the opportunity, nor the ability,” he agreed knowingly. “Doesn’t mean we don’t feel guilty about it.”

“No.”

His hands slid under her shirt, running up and down her sides in soothing repetition, and she sighed contentedly. The sheets were a little strange, the covers far too light, and the air was too harsh, too cold, but they had each other to remember home, and those feelings would go away. She kissed Zhaban again before moving to press their foreheads together. It was more of a Northern tradition, the ridges a little more sensitive to touch than the rest of the skin, but Laris enjoyed the way it made him smile. 

“I love you,” he whispered in the quiet of the room, hands stilling on her waist. 

“I love you too.”

Loud footsteps raced past their door and down the hallway. Laris looked at Zhaban in confusion and he grinned. 

“The children get an earlier lunch than the adults do,” he explained. “They like to get there early so they can choose who to sit with.”

She smiled and settled back in the bed, one arm around his waist, her free hand stroking his cheek. There was something beginning to resemble a beard where he had once been clean-shaven and it was a strange sensation. When they were with the Tal Shiar, they were banned from beards, or anything similar, and, as Zhaban had been raised to join, he had never had one.

“Do you like it?” he asked. 

“No.”

  
  


<>

  
  


They arrived at the house the day after Mars was attacked. 

It was doubtful to be the Tal Shiar, most of the operatives were scattered, and they were reliant on the Federation ships for more than just rescuing people. Picard didn’t doubt that, though his intelligence officer asked them for as much information as they could give her. Laris could understand that. She was doing what she could to save their people so they told her everything. Almost everything. There were habits permanently ingrained into them.

“I will have to leave within the hour, and Beverly’s ship has already changed course to deal with the attacks,” Picard explained, showing them to their rooms, “But please feel free to settle in as best you can.”

Zhaban began checking each possible entrance to the house, there were far too many for their liking, whilst Laris reviewed any and all security the house had, also not enough. It kept them busy and let them focus on something other than the inevitable destruction of their home and the millions of lives they knew couldn’t be saved. Whilst the security system could be easily updated to fit the standards that former members of the Tal Shiar, and high-ranking members of Starfleet, needed, there wasn’t much they could do about the abundance of doors and windows and the positions of the houses nearby the vineyard. 

“It gets warmer in the summer,” she said quietly as they watched the sun set, the cold air getting even chillier. Zhaban had drawn his arms around himself, still clad in his thick sweater. It was one he had brought from home, saved for the coldest part of winter, but it clearly wouldn’t be enough where they were. “Not much warmer, but it will be something.”

“Our room is warmer,” he replied. “It’s a good view.”

“I suppose,” Laris mused. “Still too many windows.”

“Should we go back inside?”

They went back to their room, their bags still kept close by the bed. Laris didn’t think they would be moving those any time soon. The room was warmer, not as warm as home, but it was better, it was closer. Picard had left room for personal decoration, wall space and sides free for pictures and holos, but Tal Shiar didn’t have anything. Pictures, holos, any proof of personal relations, were banned and even if they weren’t it was generally agreed that that was a safe decision. They had one exception to that rule. 

It was a small holo, easy to hide, from shortly after they were married. Hidden away in a small pocket in one of their bags, Laris wouldn’t take it out until they were fully settled in with proper security. They knew it wasn’t safe enough for them yet, they weren’t sure if they would ever be safe enough, to actually settle into a place, enough to relax. 

“Should we start on the security feed tomorrow, or the fences?” Zhaban asked, getting changed.

“I think the feed,” she said, thinking it over. “The fence is in an alright state, and the feed really needs some work.”


	2. Year Two

The admiral had resigned, his intelligence officer unjustly fired alongside him, and only a few thousand more Romulans were rescued before the supernova hit the planet. They were all quiet the day it went off, Laris and Zhaban remaining in their room, grieving, whilst Picard spoke to those at Starfleet who still listened to him, a decent number, to arrange for safe accomodation for the remaining refugees. Captain Crusher called in whenever she had a spare moment, giving updates. 

“No more home,” Zhaban sighed quietly, running a hand through Laris’ hair. “It’s strange, but until now I always thought we would find our way back.”

“A difficult concept to process, the destruction of a planet,” she agreed. Laris was always more analytical when struggling with her emotions. He pulled her closer. “But this will be our home now.”

“It will.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Earth was cold, that was their first problem to overcome. They had previously lived in a slightly cooler place than the rest of Romulus, where an extra layer was often necessary, but in La Barre, they found themselves wearing three or four. It meant they had strange looks from the locals, who were usually wearing one layer of light clothing, for more than just their clearly Romulan features. A day of hard work resulted in taking off their jumpers and/or cardigan, but even that left them too cold after a while.

“I never thought I would miss heat,” Zhaban grumbled one night before bed. Laris let out a short laugh. He had complained about it the most out of the two of them when they first got together, living in the capital where the height of summer involved health concerns. “I’d take drowning in my own sweat over this.”

“I would not,” she replied. She was already in bed, sitting up and reading one of the admiral’s books, and was watching him ever so subtly. “I could barely touch you in the summer without you complaining.”

“Didn’t stop you,” he countered. “Never stopped you.”

Zhaban leant over and gave her a brief kiss, brushing a thumb over her cheek. She leant into his touch, holding his hand in place. Romulans typically had much lower body temperatures to humans, but they also heated up far quicker when in contact with each other. Humans had something similar, skin on skin was the best way to keep them warm, but it was much more noticeable with Romulans. With his hand resting on the side of her face, Laris felt the warmth begin to bloom. She stroked over the ridges on his forehead, grinning at how he softened at her touch, and pulled him onto the bed properly. 

“See? You would’ve hated this in the summer at home,” Laris teased. 

“I wouldn’t have  _ hated  _ it. I’ve never hated anything you do.”

She gave him a strange look. “What’s got you feeling so sentimental?”

“I had an idea.”

“Am I going to have to guess?”

Zhaban kissed her forehead placatingly, reaching over to the bedside table, into the drawer. She had seen him doing something with it earlier, when they had come back for lunch, but hadn’t thought much of it. Now Laris was very curious as to what he had managed to hide from her. It was a little box, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand, and a deep navy colour. Not a lot to go off on.

“Would you like to open it?”

She took the box, giving him a warning look, and opened it slowly. Laris wasn’t concerned that it would be a dangerous object for her but Zhaban had clearly intended it as a surprise and it was a force of habit to be distrustful of surprises. Inside of it two rings were nestled on a small cushion. They were silver, the larger one with a slightly thicker band, and tastefully simple.

“Rings?” she asked in confusion.

“Humans use them to signify married couples,” he explained. Romulans didn’t do anything to signify marriage. Lots of marriages were used solely to join families together for power and secrecy of any alliances were of the highest priority. The most that they had done was move in together, though that was before they were married. “You said we needed to take on more human traditions, and this seemed like a fitting one.”

“How peculiar,” Laris mused. She picked up the smaller ring and studied it. “Is there a specific way to wear them.”

“The fourth finger on the left hand,” Zhaban replied, sliding it on for her. “Humans call this their ring finger, though I’m not entirely sure why. I didn’t want to ask.”

Laris slid his ring onto his own hand, and held them together. The light in the room reflected slightly in the metal. She didn’t quite understand the human tradition of giving so many things, so many easy to lose and easy to identify, such important meanings, but this was one of the more subtle ones. Zhaban squeezed her hand gently, breaking her out of her thoughts.

“What do you think?”

She was surprised to realise he sounded nervous. Laris wracked her brain to work out what he could be nervous about. It was only a small thing he was asking for, and it fit in with something she had mentioned they should do. Besides, they were already married; he didn’t have the normal concerns of her refusing him. Then it clicked. He was worried she wouldn’t like it, the same with any other gift he would give her.

“A wonderful idea,” Laris replied, kissing him. The small amount of tension in his frame disappeared. “You picked very well.”

“Thank you.”

  
  


<>

  
  


“How is this what they consider a hot summer?” Zhaban asked, wrapped up in three layers, walking up to the market. “Aren’t they cold?”

“They’re used to it,” Laris reminded him, looking at some of the locals in only one thin layer. “These are the warmest temperatures they’ve experienced in their lives.”

He huffed. It was necessary for them to go to the market, the replicator could make anything they needed for cooking, even full meals, but Picard preferred local produce, it was a very old family run vineyard that had bought locally for generations, and they needed to introduce themselves to their ‘neighbours’ to keep themselves unassuming. If they were hidden away, they would be seen as far more suspicious ad threatening. Walking to the market in too many layers made themselves seem more normal, in a strange way.

“I’ll get the bread and pick up the eggs that the Admiral asked for,” Laris said, going to one end of the market whilst Zhaban went to the other side. It wasn’t too busy, it was still early morning, and so Laris didn’t have to worry too much about navigating crowds. She was also well aware that people who only looked at her briefly, just acknowledging her walking down the street, would most likely assume she was Vulcan. Zhaban, prominently Northern, wasn’t as lucky.

“Good morning,” one of the sellers greeted cheerfully. Her companion, clearly feeling the earliness of the morning, blinked slowly at the words before turning his attention to Laris and smiling painfully. “What would you like today?”

“Two loaves of white bread, sliced, please,” she said. It was wrapped in paper and handed over. Laris paid quickly and took the package. “Thank you very much. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

The eggs, from the farm opposite the vineyard, were Beverly’s favourite, and the Admiral had specifically asked for them to be picked up for her coming home. Laris was looking forward to the other woman coming home; it had been months since Beverly had been back and video chats weren’t the same. The Admiral always got a little quieter whenever his wife was out of the house. 

Laris walked along the path, ignoring the dirty looks some of the other locals sent her, and went to the appropriate stall. About half of the locals had adjusted to her and Zhaban’s presence in the town, the other half still didn’t like them. No one knew for certain they were former Tal Shiar, it was a rumour around the town but those rumours were around every Romulan after the attack on Mars, and if it was a ridiculously common rumour, it was less likely for people to actually take it seriously. The dirty looks and insulting comments were a small price to pay for safety.

“Hello, Admiral Picard told us you might be visiting today,” the woman at the stall said. She wasn’t as perky as the previous woman but she was still very happy. “How many eggs would you be wanting?”

“Just a dozen, thank you,” Laris replied. A decently sized cartoon was handed over. She paid again and took it. “Have a good day.”

Zhaban took a little longer to pick up the fruits and vegetables, there was more for him to do, and she waited by the small bookshop. Normally Laris went inside to look for anything new, especially as Zhaban’s birthday was coming up soon, but it was a nice day, it was getting to a somewhat bearable temperature for her, and she wanted to enjoy it as much as she could. 

“Did you get everything you needed?” she asked as Zhaban approached. There was a tightness across his shoulders and his mouth was set in a firm straight line. Something had happened and he wasn’t happy about it at all. He nodded. Laris walked close to him on the way back home, their hands brushing together every few steps, and Zhaban had relaxed marginally when they arrived. Romulans didn’t do public displays of attention at all, even that was a lot, but Laris knew that there wasn’t much else to do when he didn’t want to talk about it. 

It wasn’t until after dinner, when they were going through routine maintenance of the security feed, that he brought it up.

“I was getting the tomatoes,” he began, changing the camera they were watching. “The farmer from last month was there, you know the one.”

Laris did. Whilst a lot of the people in town didn’t trust them, most kept those feelings to themselves, only avoiding them where they could. The farmer who tended to an exception to that, voicing his dislike of them at every possible opportunity. Laris had dealt with him, Zhaban had dealt with him, Beverly and the Admiral had argued with him a great number of times.

“It was nothing in particular he said,” Zhaban continued, “It was just how he kept going on and on about how we don’t belong here, and how we’re a danger to everyone, and I knew that I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Laris rubbed his back reassuringly, shifting in her seat to move closer. They remained in silence for a little bit longer. There wasn’t much they could say about it. Everything about how awful the situation was had already been said a hundred times over, and they both knew the feeling well enough that there was no need to explain it. Zhaban leaned into her touch and took her free hand, squeezing it gently.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”


	3. Year Three

Laris and Zhaban were understandably apprehensive when the Admiral suggested getting a dog. Whilst he was right about the animal being used as a guard dog, there were breeds specifically for being a guard dog, but there was also a lot of room for error and the dog would still have to be trained for several years before they could trust it to successfully do the job and it was another lifeform in the house that they would have to take into consideration for scans. Eventually they gave in, when Zhaban reasoned to Laris that the Admiral needed to get out more when Beverly was away and a dog was a good way to force him to do that, and the four of them set out to adopt a puppy. 

The breed that they were interested in was called a Rottweiler. Once upon a time considered a ‘violent’ breed though those beliefs about any breed of dog had been proven wrong by the time of the twenty-second century. They were relatively easy to train and had a history of being successful guard animals. 

“Do you think there is a specific type of behaviour we should be looking for?” Zhaban asked her as they were getting ready to leave. “Are we supposed to watch how they interact with their littermates, or with people?”

“You know, you can do the analytical thing all you like, but we both know the second you see the puppies you’ll forget all about it,” Laris reminded him. He was well-known in La Barre for melting the second anything young, a puppy, a kitten, a baby, came near them. It had helped a lot of the locals stop being wary of them but Laris found it a little ridiculous sometimes. Zhaban huffed in annoyance but said nothing to counter it. 

The vineyard was only a short distance away from where the family who owned the puppies lived so the four of them walked there. Laris pretended not to notice how excited Zhaban was, he was subtle enough that their companions couldn’t tell, but it was the Romulan equivalent of skipping.

Inside the house, big and open, eleven puppies and two large adult dogs roamed free, rushing over to greet the new people. Zhaban was instantly taken with all of them, crouching down to pet them and wrestle with the numerous toys that had been brought over. The owners had brought over a PADD to sort out the legal side of the adoption, just a few documents that needed signing, but let them get used to the puppies. Understandably, the mother was quite territorial with them, though the owners reassured them that they would be keeping two of the puppies. 

They were yapping, it couldn’t quite be considered barking, at each other and anything else that moved which even Laris had to admit was adorable. Two were attempting to climb on top of Zhaban and he was doing his best to support them, cooing quietly. Beverly and the admiral were petting the father dog who was proudly guiding the puppies around. Laris sighed and sat down next to her husband, catching one of the puppies just as it was about to fall off Zhaban’s lap. It began to yap at her instead, demanding the attention its siblings were also getting. 

“They’re all so lovely,” Beverly gushed, picking up the nearest to her. “Is this the whole litter?”

“No, two have already been adopted. It’s why little Missy over there is a bit overprotective.”

As if to prove the point, the mother dog growled slightly and some of the puppies rushed over to her. The one resting in Laris’ lap growled slightly in response. It would have been threatening if it wasn’t the smallest of the litter and the growl wasn’t the most pathetic noise Laris had ever heard. Afterwards, apparently exhausted from that one noise, it flopped down and simply watched them all. 

“That’s more than reasonable,” Beverly agreed. “When I first had Wesley, I didn’t want anyone going near him.”

For a little while longer they played with the puppies, Laris moving the one in her lap onto the floor so that its siblings wouldn’t step on it in their enthusiasm. Zhaban was constantly bombarded by the puppies, his enthusiasm matching theirs, and so she spent most of the time ensuring that they weren’t crushing each other or falling onto the floor too painfully. There were footsteps from upstairs, one of the other occupants of the house moving about, and the puppy next to Laris growled up at the ceiling, an equally pathetic noise to the one earlier.

“That one barks at anything,” the owner said with a rueful smile. “Haven’t quite worked out if it’s an aggression thing or an excitement thing; they’re still so young so pretty much everything is new to them.”

Beverly stroked over the pup’s head and grinned at how it blinked up at her, sleepily. “Aw, are we tired, hm?”

It let out a little whine when Beverly stopped and so Zhaban picked the puppy up, rubbing down its back. Laris bit back a smile at how he grinned. The puppy nuzzled into his arms, apparently deciding that Zhaban was its new bed. Beverly and the Admiral came closer, fussing over the puppy. She was fairly certain this would be the one that they would be adopting.

  
  


<>

  
  


They named the puppy Echo.

She barked anytime there was a new noise or smell which meant, for the first few weeks, that the house was filled with noise. Echo slept in Beverly and Jean-Luc’s room since Beverly travelled a lot and it would mean the admiral wouldn’t be alone at night, leaving him less vulnerable. It didn’t stop Echo from trying to follow Laris everywhere. She had expected the dog to prefer Zhaban, as every other animal did, but instead Echo was somewhat fascinated with her.

“What’s wrong with the dog liking you, hm?” Zhaban teased as Laris lifted Echo off of the sofa. Laris rolled her eyes as she settled next to him, head resting on his shoulder as his arm wrapped around her waist, and ignored how Echo was immediately begging to be let back on. Zhaban petted her head which seemed to appease her somewhat.

“I don’t enjoy being followed,” Laris told him. “It doesn’t matter how easy it is to know where she is. And it’s especially difficult when I’m trying to work and all of the workers are coming over to talk to her.”

Zhaban chuckled softly. Laris did love Echo, it was hard not to, but there was a lot of adjusting necessary and she didn’t like it when things had to be changed. Living with people other than Zhaban had been a lot, now they had someone new in the house who couldn’t even be reasoned with. He pressed a kiss to her temple.

“She’s getting better,” he continued. “Learning what ‘sit’ means, understanding where she is and isn’t allowed to go, even if she doesn’t do it.”

The last part was directed to Echo who looked up at them innocently. Laris relented and stroked over her head, scratching behind her ear. Echo whined slightly, and tried to get back onto the sofa. She returned to her basket when she was pushed back down again.

“It’ll get easier,” Zhaban reminded her. “We struggled with Beverly and the admiral, we’re struggling a bit with Echo, but we adjusted to them and we’ll adjust to her.”

Laris hummed in acknowledgement, taking his hand and entwining their fingers together. Now that Echo had gone to her bed, sulking, the house was quiet. Beverly and Jean-Luc were gone for the weekend, the Rikers expecting their second child any day and they’d promised to babysit Kestra when the time came. There was the constant noise of the wildlife just outside, bugs attempting to get to just one unprotected grape, and the distant noise of the town down the road. 

“This is our third year, now, on Earth,” Zhaban mused as they watched the moon get higher and higher. “Twice as long as we originally thought we’d get.”

“Still not long enough to be settled.”

“We’ll get there.”

  
  


<>

  
  


When Beverly called a few days later, sending them a couple of holos of a newborn baby with unmistakable Betazoid eyes, Kestra was desperate to see the new puppy. It was an exciting week for her; a new sibling, a brother they had been told, and she could see a puppy. Zhaban held Echo in his lap so she could be seen easily and they answered all of the questions she bombarded them with. Echo was very healthy, she was ten months old, she was learning how to sit and she was very soft.

In return they learnt about the newest Riker, name currently undecided, who was two days late, weighed eight pounds and was also very healthy. After updating them on the unchanged status of the estate, Beverly and Jean-Luc had only been gone a few days, they cut the call off, leaving Echo looking around for where the people had disappeared to. 

“Are you ever disappointed that we didn’t have children?” Laris asked, letting Echo out as she pawed at the door. “I know you love them.”

“Maybe sometimes,” he replied. “But our life wouldn’t be safe for them, they would be in constant danger. As well as the fact my parents weren’t particularly involved in my life and I wouldn’t want to do that to a child.”

“But sometimes you think about it?” she prompted and Zhaban pulled her close.

“When we have quiet days, when it’s easier to forget about what we’ve done, I think about what it would be like, if we had different lives. If we didn’t go into the Tal Shiar and met somewhere else.”

“Where else would we meet?”

“Anywhere else. I think we would find each other no matter what,” he said, rubbing over the point of her ear. “And in another life we might have had children.”

There was something else he wasn’t telling her. “Do you think about what they’d be like?”

“They’d have your nose and your smile,” Zhaban explained, tapping the tip of her nose and then trailing down to brush over her lower lip. “Your curls.”

“But…” she said leadingly.

“But that’s not our life and I know you’ve never wanted children,” he said simply. “And I’d rather have just you than someone else with children.”

“Sap,” Laris grinned, kissing him softly. Echo barked at the door, asking to be let in.


	4. Year Four

“No, it’s too early,” Zhaban groaned, tightening his arm around Laris’ waist before she could get out of bed. She scoffed. “You said we would have an extra half hour this morning.”

“You know, since it’s my birthday, I thought we were doing what I wanted to do,” she replied, burrowing into his side again. 

“You agreed to it,” he said, not opening his eyes. “And it’s only half an hour before we have a normal work day because you didn’t want to take any time off.”

“I would get bored and start something else and you know it.”

Zhaban laughed slightly and pulled her closer. His hand slipped underneath her sleepshirt, stroking at the skin of her waist. She kissed his collarbone and sighed. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her birthday, when you join the Tal Shiar reaching the next day is an achievement and so birthdays are meant to be important, but she didn’t understand the human fascination for celebrating them as much as they did. 

“I know,” he agreed. “Do you want your present now, before we have to get up?”

“Sure.”

They’ve never done big presents, in their previous lives big presents were probably the worst and most dangerous gifts and the habit had carried over into their new lives. Laris remembered every present that Zhaban had given her in the eight years that they had been together. Her first birthday when they had gotten together had been during a month long gap when their missions kept them apart. He had managed to arrange a call for about half an hour and found a book she had told him she liked when she was a child.

Her second birthday, they were also apart. Zhaban had given her a small pendant with a simple pattern. Her third birthday was the first one when they were in the same place at the same time. Since they didn’t have missions, they had nowhere to be and had stayed in bed far longer than they would have usually done. Zhaban had given her a new watch, her last one breaking a few weeks prior, and she still wore it. Her fourth birthday had involved being apart for nearly three months, encompassing both of their birthdays, and they had decided to get married instead of celebrating the individual events. That was her favourite. 

For her fifth birthday, only a few weeks after coming to Earth, Zhaban had replaced her favourite cardigan that had torn a few days before. For her sixth, they’d gone on a day long trip to the local museum at an exhibit that she’d found interesting. The year before it had been a bottle of, illegally procured, Romulan ale that they had shared after dinner. This year it was a small package, slightly too big to hold with one hand, in plain brown wrapping.

Laris tore the paper carefully and saw a familiar sight. It was a book, written in Rihan, the same book that he had read to her all those years ago. After changing safe houses and leaving their planet, the book had been lost and whilst the copy in her hands wasn’t the original version, Laris was still just as thrilled to see it. 

“Do you like it?” Zhaban asked after a few moments.

“It’s perfect, Zhaban,” she replied, kissing him softly, stroking his cheek as they broke apart. “Thank you.”

“Read it for me?” she asked. He grinned, taking the book from her hands, and shifted to be sitting up, resting against the headboard. Laris moved as well, resting against his shoulder and soaking in the gentle morning sun just beginning to shine through their window. The familiar words, in their own language, relaxed her so much she almost flinched when their alarm went off at the agreed upon time. It was sheer pride from their earlier conversation that stopped her from asking for a little bit longer. Zhaban knew anyway, she was sure of it.

  
  


<>

  
  


“Are you ready for lunch?” Zhaban asked, approaching her by the secondary shed. There were two large wooden huts on the vineyard. The main shed was closer to the entrance, where the workers had easy access to it coming in and leaving. Most of the tools were in the main shed as well as medical kits, checked over and updated frequently by Beverly, and other things that they might need. The secondary shed was for the extra stores of supplies. Part of Laris’ job was to keep the files about the stores up to date and it was a nice way of spending part of her day once a week. 

“Just finishing up,” she replied, glancing up from the padd. “Did you find Echo’s missing toy?”

“She buried it next to one of the trees by the fence,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear the squeaks and barks when we gave it back to her. Most of the workers could hear across the vineyard.”

“I’ve been here for a couple of hours, the door and walls are pretty thick,” Laris shrugged, finalising the last few numbers. Zhaban walked a little closer, hand resting on her waist, smiling, and Laris turned to look at him properly. “Are you okay?”

“I missed you a bit earlier,” he admitted, pulling her closer. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hands running through his short hair, kissing him briefly. He grinned at her, brushing their noses together. “I think I’ve gone soft.”

“Just a little,” she teased. Laris brushed over his forehead ridges and grinned as he melted at the touch. There was a familiar jump in her stomach as he reacted in the same way he always had, the same way as the first time, before they even got married.“If you can keep a secret, I’ve gone soft too.”

“I think I can manage that secret. You know, we’ve probably got a few more minutes before we go up for lunch.”

She kissed him again, deeper that time, and they walked backwards to the wall, bumping into it. Laris ran her hands down his back, smiling against him, and clutched at his shirt. It wasn’t until they heard a group of workers walking past, having come back from their own lunch break, that they broke apart. Zhaban stroked down her ear, brushing over the tip, with one hand and holding her waist with his free hand. 

“Having a good birthday?” he asked her. 

“It’s not been too bad,” Laris replied. “Ready to get going back up to the house?”

  
  


<>

  
  


“Happy birthday to you!” the others sang to her. “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to Laris! Happy birthday to you!”

Jean-Luc laid down the cake, lit with a handful of candles, as Beverly and Zhaban cheered. Laris closed her eyes and blew out the candles. The room was dark for a few moments as they messed with the lights but soon it was lit up again. Written on the top of the cake, no chocolate anywhere near it, was the simple phrase ‘Happy Birthday’ in very neat handwriting. 

“Did you make a wish?” the admiral asked. Laris nodded. She did not make a wish. It was a very human tradition, Romulans didn’t even have an equivalent word in Rihan, but the others were very excited about it. Zhaban gave her a smile, knowingly. “Great!”

“Let’s cut up the cake,” Beverly said, bringing out extra plates. Laris was given the biggest slice, the others getting slightly smaller slices and Echo getting her own treat. “Have you had a good day?”

“It’s been quite good, yes.”

“What did Zhaban get you?”

“A book I liked from when I was younger,” Laris explained. “It was what Zhaban got me for my birthday when we first got together, we lost it quite a long time ago.”

“Oh, how lovely,” Jean-Luc said. “I don’t think our present will quite match up to that, but, um, here you are.”

Laris thanked the two of them and opened the box that the admiral awkwardly slid across the table. Inside the box, covered in a few layers of coloured tissue paper, typical with a lot of human presents, was a holo. The holo had captured an image of when Echo was still a very small puppy, presumably only a few weeks after they had adopted her, with Laris and Zhaban trying to train her. Echo had jumped into Zhaban’s arms, surprising him, whilst Laris laughed at the two of them. The image was taken from security cameras set for the vineyards. She vaguely remembered it happening.

“This is wonderful,” she replied, taking it out of the box to look at it carefully. Zhaban leant over as well, having not seen it either. He also took some of her cake when she wasn’t in a position to stop him. 

  
  


<>

  
  


They now had two holos on their side. 

The first they had placed on the side was the holo they had brought from Romulus, from just after they had gotten married. Zhaban’s parents, in a brief surge of parental interest, had taken it. They had not been invited to the wedding, lots of Romulan weddings didn’t involve any guests at all, but the four of them had struggled through a few days of interacting with each other. Laris knew a lot of people didn’t get along with their in-laws but there was an added difficulty when they were terrible parents and one of them was your former handler.

Zhaban had his arm wrapped around her waist, telling his parents about one of their earlier anniversaries, whilst Laris watched him with a smile. She wasn’t thrilled about the context of it, Zhaban’s parents didn’t bring up happy memories from either of them, but there was something about the image that made Laris so stupidly happy that she couldn’t bring herself to ever get rid of it. Zhaban felt the same.

The second one, the one with Echo, stood alongside it. Laris was looking at them carefully, finding the differences that four years made. Most notably, Zhaban had a beard. She was used to it, though she would never admit it to her husband, to the point where it would be strange if he shaved it. They had aged, obviously, and their clothes had changed to accomodate the colder La Barre temperatures. In the Echo picture, they looked more relaxed.

“What are you thinking about?” Zhaban asked, walking out of the bathroom, having just showered. “You’ve been a little quiet since dinner.”

“We’ve changed a lot over the years,” she replied. He scoffed a little bit and stood next to her. “I know it’s obvious, but you can see it more in the holos.”

“I suppose that’s why people collect them,” he replied. “So they can see all the changes.”

Laris hummed in acknowledgement, leaning against him. 

“Have you had a good birthday?”

There was a slight bit of nervousness in his tone, his fingers tapping against her side, and he was looking intently at the holos. She rubbed the back of his neck reassuringly, guiding his head to look at her in the eye. 

“I’ve had a great birthday,” Laris told him sincerely. “Thank you.”


	5. Year Five

Zhaban had been injured at the bottom end of the vineyard, brought up to the main house with a couple of other workers who had also been injured, nothing serious.

That had been the sum total of the message Laris received from Beverly when she was just beginning to finish the store count for that month. Since it apparently wasn’t anything serious, and she trusted Beverly to tell her if it was, Laris waited until she had completely finished and updated the database before heading over for what would normally be her lunch break.

A room of the house had been set aside by Beverly for treating any injuries the workers had. It wasn’t used very often, of which they were all grateful for, only for the occasional slip up that only needed a dermal regenerator and basic first aid knowledge, which most of the senior workers had as a minimum. If there were a few workers who were injured, including her husband who didn’t do a lot of the manual labour, then Laris figured that something had gone very wrong.

She found him sitting upright on one of the medical beds, looking fairly unconcerned about the entire thing. A few other workers were there also on the beds. A few had bandages wrapped around their heads, droplets of blood staining them, but with Beverly making her way around the group there wasn’t much need for it. Zhaban didn’t have a head injury, he had a bandage wrapped around his chest, tinged slightly green where the injury lay directly underneath. When he saw her, he smiled weakly.

“It’s only a shallow cut,” Beverly told her, “But he won’t let me see it until I’ve finished with the others.”

“Shallow cuts aren’t as dangerous as head injuries,” he shrugged before hiding a wince at the pain the movement caused him. Laris noticed and glared at him. “One of the machines broke and a pipe swung out. There’s already engineers there and no one else is allowed near .”

Laris fetched a spare dermal regenerator and peeled back the bandage. It was shallow, Beverly had been perfectly correct, but on Romulans, any cut on the chest tended to bleed quite heavily, much like a human head injury. Something to do with the amount of blood vessels present. Zhaban remained perfectly still as she treated it and Laris tried to forget about the last time they had patched each other up.

It had been one of the rare missions where they were working together, infiltrating a base, nothing they hadn’t done a thousand times before at that point. An explosive that had managed to go undetected by the repeated scans had gone off, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. Laris had come out of it relatively unscathed, only a small collection of superficial cuts on her arms that were fixed within seconds of arriving back home. Zhaban had caught a piece in his lower back and it had nearly severed his spine. There had been a lot of blood that day.

“All done,” she told him, checking his skin one last time for anything she might have missed. Zhaban wiped off the worst of the blood with a cloth and nothing showed. He held her hand tightly, noticing the way it trembled as she put down the dermal regenerator. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” he said honestly. “It didn’t hurt that much to begin with.”

As the workers were walked home by friends or family who came to pick them up, with strict instructions from Beverly to go immediately to the hospital if anything felt off, Zhaban and Laris went back to their room. Zhaban went into the shower, his torn and bloodied shirt thrown into the recycler, whilst Laris washed the small amount of blood from her hands. They were still shaking slightly. 

She laid back on their bed, listening to the water pouring down in the room next door. It wasn’t the first time they had been hurt since coming to Earth, they’d caught themselves on knives whilst cooking, burned themselves a handful of times, Zhaban had even twisted his ankle the year before when helping set up for the local summer fete, but it was the first time the injury had reminded her of something that bad. Laris tried to steady her breathing and gripped the covers tightly.

At some point the water turned off and Zhaban joined her, curling around her almost protectively. Laris buried her face in his neck and transferred her grip from the bed to his sweater. 

“I’m okay,” he told her quietly when the episode was starting to pass. “I promise I’m okay. It’s not like last time.”

“You’re not allowed to leave me,” she muttered fiercely. “Not for a very,  _ very _ long time, do you understand?”

“I do,” Zhaban told her and she could hear the smile in her voice. “And you’re not leaving me either, alright?”

“That seems fair,” Laris joked weakly. 

  
  


<>

  
  


The machine had broken down because of a fault involving rain water freezing inside during the winter, meaning that all of the machines were taken in for repairs until the end of the week. The Admiral gave the workers the week off before the news had even broken, worried about something else going wrong, and visited the injured ones just to make sure they were okay. Beverly had accompanied him, bringing her tricorder with her, which left Zhaban and Lari for long periods of time a day alone in the house. Alone with Echo.

“Are you excited for your lunch, huh?” Zhaban asked, rubbing the dog’s head appreciatively. She had grown to be much bigger than they had originally expected, the biggest of her litter the previous owners had informed them when they’d come to visit, but still acted like a puppy. “I’ve bet you’ve missed all of the workers, haven’t you? Not enough people to spoil you.”

“I’m sure you make up for it,” Laris told him, walking into the room. Echo’s attention immediately went to her in the same way it did when someone was carrying food she wasn’t allowed to eat. She padded over to where Laris stood at the counter, head resting on her leg. “Hello, girl. Go on, Zhaban’s got your lunch.”

“She likes you more,” he told her, placing the bowl, unnoticed by Echo, by the dog’s paws. Laris kissed his cheek as he walked past before nudging the dog, getting her to at least bend her head down towards the bowl. “You know, I was talking to Marc earlier.”

“Is he feeling better after Tuesday?”

“He’s fine, no headaches or anything. Kids are tiring him out a bit since the school’s on break so he’s excited to get back on Monday. Apparently human terms of endearment are called pet names. At least, with couples they are.”

“How strange,” Laris replied. “Although I still think the sheer number of terms of endearment they use is a bit excessive. What’s wrong with calling someone by their name?”

“Names are different for humans,” Zhaban reminded her.

That had been the biggest problem they had encountered when coming to Earth, as it had been for the Federation as well. The concept of multiple names was difficult for many people to comprehend and it had made organising the initial refugees difficult when they responded to multiple names depending on the person. Some of the lower rank Starfleet individuals who had been put in charge of just watching the bulk of the people coming off of the ships had been involved in fights when accidentally using a family name when talking to someone. 

“I suppose.”

“And we have terms of endearment.”

“There’s a difference between calling someone  _ spouse _ and calling someone sweetheart,” Laris told him, wrinkling her nose a little at the last word. “One of them denotes a family relation and one of them is far too over the top.”

Zhaban chuckled at her dramatics and brought over two plates. It was a Romulan dish, something they had eaten a few thousand times back home, but with a mix of Earth vegetables mixed in so that it wasn’t entirely replicated, making it taste somewhat more real. Laris had always preferred his cooking anyway. She thanked him.

“It’s a cultural thing,” he shrugged. “Doesn’t mean we have to understand it. Besides, most humans don’t understand the idea of true names. They think it’s a marriage thing, and they think it’s strange.”

It wasn’t to do with marriage, although the two tended to go hand in hand, as some Romulans never married but still exchanged names. They hadn’t exchanged true names until a year into their marriage and that was earlier than most Romulans, even taking into consideration the fact that they married after only four years together. A lot of Romulan couples didn’t ever exchange true names, never feeling secure enough to tell that most important secret. 

Laris hummed in acknowledgement and went back to her lunch. He watched her carefully, not subtle enough to escape her notice, and picked at his plate. Tuesday had not been a good day, he and a handful of others had been injured, the machines all had to be checked for faults, and Laris had had an episode. They both had their struggles, when something happened that reminded them of a particularly bad time with the Tal Shiar. Humans called those things triggers, a word that Laris didn’t like, and Beverly had suggested a diagnosis of PTSD, though she reminded them she wasn’t a counsellor. 

Whilst he suffered with nightmares more than his wife, Laris had episodes. They usually involved her going very still, apart from her hands that trembled, and she would find it difficult to hold a conversation. It lasted only an hour at a time and happened infrequently, sometimes going months without them, but each time it terrified Zhaban.

“I’m okay,” she told him, breaking him out of his thoughts. “You’ve been watching me all week.”

“Sorry, I just got a little worried.”

“I know,” she said, standing up to put her plate away. Instead of going back to her seat she stood next to him, holding him again. “It’ll pass, like it always does. The last one was almost eight months ago now.”

“Yes, back in August,” Zhaban remembered. He took her hand from his shoulder and kissed it, playing with her fingers. Her wedding ring glinted slightly in the light and he smiled. “We’re doing alright.”

“Exactly.”

Echo, who had finally finished her lunch, came over to join them, desperate for attention. Zhaban petted her softly, scratching behind her ear, and looked back up at Laris. It was always a little strange looking up at his wife; she was a good few inches shorter than him and detested wearing heels. Laris smiled and stroked over his forehead ridges. Almost of their own accord, his eyes closed shut and he leaned into the touch. 


	6. Year Six

“Did the negotiations really go that badly?” Laris asked sympathetically, bringing over two mugs of tea. Beverly groaned before thanking her for the mug and resting her head in her hands.

“Somehow worse,” the older woman complained. “Half of them wanted to blast the ship for simply being near their territory and the other half were asking us to help them with their own problems. Which would have been fine if we hadn’t been in a rush.”

“But you wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t easy.”

“No. No, I wouldn’t.”

Zhaban, the Admiral and Echo were on their way back from the market, the Admiral having not gotten out as much as he should have whilst his wife was away and now regretting it, so it was just the two of them in the house. Most of the workers were home as well, only a skeleton crew there to keep an eye on things, meaning the vineyard was surprisingly quiet. Laris was glad to see her friend again. Beverly had been gone for months after something had gone wrong on a planet near to their system; most medical ships in the area had been called to help.

“How did the fete go?” Beverly asked.

“It went well. It took the children only an hour before they had completely solved the maze so they’re improving. Zhaban ended up helping set up a few of the stalls but at least he managed to not injure himself this year.”

“Always helpful.”

Laris got up to get the biscuits from the tin kept safely away from any Echo-reachable surfaces and the world went black.

  
  


<>

  
  


The house was empty when they got back, to their surprise. Zhaban set about unpacking the food they had bought whilst Jean-Luc sorted out lunch for Echo. There was no note or anything to tell them where Laris and Beverly had gone so he assumed they would only be out for a few minutes, or that a neighbour had needed help with something. It wasn’t uncommon for the people of La Barre to go to Beverly instead of the hospital and she was always happy to help them. Zhaban did a diagnostics run of the security systems, just in case, but nothing even flagged as a minor concern so he didn’t question it.

An alert sounded, labelled urgent.

Beverly’s face appeared on the screen, looking harried, and Zhaban didn’t recognise the surroundings behind her. Most worryingly, Laris wasn’t with her. The Admiral came back into the room, having heard the alert as well, with Echo on his heels. She picked up on the mood in the room immediately and curled up next to Zhaban’s feet almost protectively.

“What’s happened?” Zhaban asked, already fearing the worst. 

“Laris collapsed about an hour ago. No warning, no other obvious symptoms, just out cold, and I couldn’t wake her up. We’re at the hospital now, she’s still being checked over but they think they know the cause. Has she ever had a case of Jhiara?”

“When she was very young,” he remembered. “It was so mild that the doctors originally assumed it was just a stomach bug.”

Jhiara was a very rare illness amongst Romulans that usually occurred before puberty. It was similar to human chickenpox in that it rarely, if ever, showed up again, but in a very small number of cases it could lie dormant for decades, as it apparently had with Laris. The way that it worked was weakening the body until even the person’s organs couldn’t function enough to keep them alive. With medical equipment they had now, the mortality rate was only around seventy-five percent. In the past, when Zhaban’s grandparents hadn’t even been born, there had been no known cure. 

“Thank you, Zhaban. I need to go now, she’s still in critical condition, but we’re at the hospital. Dr Benayoun and I are working on a plan to take care of the worst of the symptoms but if you have anything at all on her first case of it, we could really use it.”

“Of course.”

The call cut off, Beverly being called away again. 

“I’ll organise the transporter and get Echo sorted, you grab any files that you have,” Jean-Luc told him, taking control of the situation. Zhaban was grateful for that. It felt like he had gone completely numb from the moment that Beverly had started talking. He went back to their room and dug out the padds they had hidden behind the wardrobe in a disguised alcove. 

Most of the contents were from their time with the Tal Shiar, files that could prove helpful if their lives at the vineyard went to hell, but some of it was from when they were children. At the bottom was Laris’ medical file as a primary student, when she’d fallen ill. Because it had been such a minor case and they assumed it wouldn’t come back, her parents hadn’t terminated her but had kept the records as a just in case. He checked to make sure the file was still readable and then went back to the front room.

The Admiral was waiting there, Echo lying in her bed with full bowls and all of her toys collected, looking miserable, and they stood next to each other as the transporter started up. Zhaban didn’t particularly like travelling by transporter, it made him feel a little nauseated when they arrived at their destination, but it was the furthest thing on his mind then.

Beverly rushed over to them, in full doctor mode at that point, and took the padd that Zhaban wordlessly offered. She started skimming through it, clearly looking for something important, whilst guiding them towards the waiting room. Zhaban had never actually been to the hospital, though he knew the general layout from when he and Laris had checked it for security risks, and Laris had gone a couple times to visit Beverly when she had been asked to help. Sitting near Laris’ room, close enough for Romulan ears to hear the doctors talking inside, his anxiety was higher than it had ever been. 

“Thank you, this is really going to help, Zhaban,” she said. “Try and stay calm, we’re doing everything that we can.”

“I know,” he replied, sighing a little bit. Beverly reassuringly squeezed his shoulder before going back to the room. He listened carefully, hearing machines and monitors beeping and hushed, stressed voices discussing medical terms he didn’t understand. 

For a terrifying period of about ten minutes, the beeps were unsteady and the stress in the room was increasing, but it calmed down again. Jean-Luc sat with him, knowing not to hold a conversation with his friend whilst he was that stressed, reading through one of the booklets left on the side for visitors. There was no one else in the room with them which Zhaban was grateful for; he wasn’t sure he could handle talking to people. 

Two hours later, Beverly came out to talk to them. “Alright, she’s mostly stable right now, if you want to come in.”

Laris was lying on the hospital bed, covered by a thick blue blanket, attached to various machines monitoring all of her organs. She was pale, even paler than their first winter on Earth, and so very still. He held her hand, cold and unresponsive, tightly, sitting down next to her bed. Nurses were still moving about, checking on the machines, but they stayed quiet and distant from them. Beverly and Jean-Luc joined him, standing politely at the other side of her bed.

“She’s doing a little better,” Beverly began. “Once she wakes up we’ll be able to assess the situation better, but now we’re just waiting for when it happens.”

Zhaban was grateful for her use of the word ‘when’ but they were all realistic. Her chances were about one in four for surviving and the hardest part would be her waking up. He squeezed her hand a little tighter. Laris didn’t respond.

  
  


<>

  
  


Around two weeks after she first collapsed, Zhaban was sitting by her side, talking quietly. In the hospital, he spoke to Laris almost exclusively in Rihan. It stopped him worrying about being overheard and speaking their first language was probably more beneficial for Laris. Beverly and Jean-Luc stayed for a handful of hours a day but gave him time alone.

“ _ Echo misses you, you know _ ,” he said, stroking over the back of her hand. “ _ Keeps looking for you whenever I’m home. Looks in our room in the morning. She’s going to be really happy when you come home. I don’t think she’ll leave your side. _

“ _ The vineyard is doing alright, getting into the harvest. The workers send their well-wishes. This has all got them all pretty shaken. And I don’t feel great about it, obviously. I don’t like seeing you like this. I don’t like you suffering. I’ve been missing you when I wake up. Ten years together, I’ve gotten used to you being next to me. Feels wrong when I’m alone, now. I can’t imagine you’re enjoying this at all. _

“ _ You know, I was reading one of the information booklets they leave out. Apparently it can be useful, for the both of us, to talk about positive things. I didn’t really like the suggestions they gave, so I think I’ll talk about something else. I like your ears. I like the way they curve at the top, and I like how your hair looks when it’s tucked behind them. I like how excited you get when we’re improving the security systems and you have a new idea. _

“ _ I love you. A lot. More than I have ever loved anyone and more than I will love anyone. And remember, we’re not allowed to leave each other for a very long time. We promised. _ ”

  
  


<>

  
  


Zhaban was practically half asleep a month later, so much so that he almost didn’t notice when Laris’ hold on his hand tightened, for the first time in six weeks. His head shot up, staring intently at Laris as her eyes began to flutter open. Her breathing was shaky, chest heaving with the effort of just that simple action, and her hand was clutching at him even harder.

“ _ I’ve got you, I’ve got you. Can you hear me? _ ”

Laris looked at him, blinking slowly, before recognition sparked and she relaxed slightly. He helped her sit up, remembering her telling him that she hated being stuck lying down when she had been sick when younger. Zhaban knew that he should be calling one of the nurses, or Beverly or Dr Benayoun, but all he could do was watch his wife carefully, cupping her cheek. It was still cold, but warming up, something that hadn’t happened when she was asleep.

“ _ I can hear you _ ,” she replied, voice hoarse. “ _ This is Jhiara, isn’t it? _ ”

“ _ Yes, but you’ve got through the worst of it. Beverly and Dr Benayoun are here to help and you’ve always got me.” _

“ _ I know. _ ”


	7. Year Seven

Laris was lying on top of Zhaban, head pushed under his chin and playing absent-mindedly with a small puzzle box as he read. The sun had long set, the moon shining in through their window, and they had remained in that position for almost hours. Zhaban had nearly finished the book he had started only that morning whilst Laris had solved the puzzle six different ways and was working on a seventh.

“Well, that was an underwhelming ending,” he muttered, putting the padd on the bedside table. Laris laughed quietly and moved closer, his hands going to brush through her hair. “Almost wasn’t worth reading the book.”

“You liked the start,” Laris pointed out.

“Yes but it just kept getting worse and worse,” Zhaban replied. “How’s your puzzle going?”

“I think I’ll start on the eighth solution tomorrow,” she said, placing the puzzle on top of his discarded padd and burrowing closer to him again.

They hadn’t used to lie this close together. When they were with the Tal Shiar they always needed to be ready to fight at any given moment and being wrapped up in each other impeded their movements. Slowly, once they came to earth, they moved to holding each other, a comfort in a place where everything was strange and wrong. When Laris came home from the hospital after months, in the final stage of recovery, she had spent every night lying directly on top of him, craving as much physical contact from Zhaban as she could get. A year later and, even though she didn’t need to sleep like that anymore, she still spent most evenings on top of him.

“Sounds like a plan,” he murmured, settling down, eyes closing for sleep. His fingers continued carding through her hair but slower and softer. “See you in the morning. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Laris replied, shifting some of her weight to the side, back onto the bed, and keeping her arm wrapped tightly around his waist. Her own eyes closed. “See you in the morning.”

  
  


<>

  
  


It was a relatively quiet day, Beverly had left the week before for a two month trip with her crew and the newest upgrades to the machinery were still working, which meant there was nothing more than the bare minimum for keeping the vineyard running. Laris and Zhaban took a slightly earlier lunch, ensuring Echo got the treats she begged for, and sat down at the table. The admiral wasn’t present, he had gotten wrapped up in an idea for another book the day before and had remained in his office almost the entire time since. 

“Do you know what I’ve been thinking?” Zhaban asked as they cleaned the plates up. Laris turned to him, eyebrow raised. “We should try a new hobby. Something we thought we wouldn’t want to do. Just to keep us busy whilst work is slow and we’re waiting for Beverly to let you spar again.”

Laris had been told by practically everyone that she wasn’t to do anything more strenuous than a simple day’s work, none of the heavy lifting she would do when the situation came for it, a rule heavily enforced by the other three people she lived with. However, for a former Tal Shiar, it was very difficult to not spend a lot of time training and practically impossible to do no training. The decision had sparked a lot of arguments between the two of them, the stress from her illness and the change in routine making tensions boil over a few times.

“Any suggestions?”

“You didn’t want to do knitting when you were at the hospital,” he suggested and the look of disgust on her face was worth any rejection his idea was about to get. “It can be a challenge, you picking what I do. Whoever gets better at what they’re stuck doing by the time Beverly gets back, wins. And you’ll probably be allowed to start light training by then.”

Zhaban watched her debate it in her head. She detested the idea of knitting, he wasn’t quite sure why, so he was just waiting to see if she could come up with something he hated as much as she hated knitting. There was no way that she would back down from a challenge if there was one there, especially if it was a challenge from him. 

“You don’t know how to play any human instruments,” Laris said finally. They could both play a handful of Romulan instruments and Laris learnt the piano and guitar when they first came to earth to give her something to focus on. “If I knit you something, you have to learn to play guitar, one of the songs I learnt first.”

“Deal,” Zhaban said, kissing her cheek as he walked past. “Starting tomorrow?”

“Deal.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Laris did not like knitting.

For one thing, it was inefficient. There was no point replicating the materials and tools needed to make an item when you could just replicate the item itself, in a fraction of the time. For another thing, the end product was always going to be flawed in some way, as opposed to something the replicator would make perfectly every time. 

Laris did not like knitting and Zhaban knew it.

Which was why she had suggested he had to learn to play guitar. It wasn’t that he was bad with musical instruments, though he certainly hadn’t been born with the natural gift for it his mother had possessed, he just had the same petty problems with them she had with knitting. A perfectly suitable hobby for someone else, he just didn’t want to have anything to do with it himself. 

The admiral was still focused on his new book idea, hidden away in his office and re-adjusting to the absence of his wife, and so there were long hours of the day where the only noise in the house was Zhaban plucking awkwardly at the guitar strings and Echo asking to be let out or in. Laris was making a simple sweater for Zhaban, he had picked the colour since the pattern was very basic, and apparently it was perfectly achievable within a two month time frame. Zhaban was working through one of the beginner books Laris had started with. Echo found it all very confusing but she still loyally sat by Laris’ side all the same. 

“I can’t seem to get this B flat to sound right,” Zhaban complained as Laris lay in bed, working on a new row. She glanced up and snorted in laughter. 

“That’s because you’re playing a G flat,” she replied. “You’re doing your fingering wrong.”

“First time you’ve told me that.”

Laris threw her pillow at him, half tempted to throw her needles at him instead, and laughed properly that time, studying the proud grin on her husband’s face. He put the guitar down and joined her on the bed. 

“That was completely uncalled for,” Zhaban said in mock-offence. “You thought it was funny.”

“And you’re lucky I did,” Laris replied, setting aside her knitting to stroke over his cheek. She had, eventually, grown to like the beard and though she would never admit it to him Zhaban knew. “Enjoying the guitar?”

“I like when you play it,” he replied and Laris knew that was the only response she would get that was both positive and honest. “I don’t like much else about it. What about knitting? Are you enjoying doing that?”

“I enjoy knowing that you have to wear it when I’m done. It makes all of the accidental holes much less frustrating.”

Zhaban kissed her, cupping the back of her head to pull her closer, and they shifted until he was lying on top of her. She leant their foreheads together as they broke apart, feeling his ridges pressed against her, and grinned at the way he melted at the touch. His eyes were closed in content but they opened again when Laris ran her hands up and down his back, under his shirt. 

“Love you,” he said quietly. 

“Love you too.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Beverly came home two days early, the journey back apparently far less eventful than anyone had been expecting, and was surprised by how they were all acting.

“Are you always like this when I’m gone?” she asked as they all sat about the living room, working on their various projects.

“No,” Zhaban shrugged, wincing as he played a noticeably wrong note. “Laris and I came up with the challenge to keep us busy.”

“Unless you want to clear me for training two days earlier?”

“Not happening,” Beverly replied before Laris could even finish, sending her friend a stern look. “You’ve survived a year, you can wait two more days. And don’t forget, it has to be  _ light _ training for another two months until your next assessment.”

“Enough time for you to make yourself a sweater to match,” Jean-Luc pointed out, only to receive a very angry glare from Laris. She had not grown fonder of the hobby over the two months but the quality of the sweater had increased quite a lot. “Or not.”

“Who’s winning?” Beverly asked.

“Laris,” Zhaban groaned. “I’m not doing very well with the songs.”

“I am surprised. You can play the lyre, I’ve always thought that string instruments must be somewhat similar.”

“I thought that too,” he agreed. “But it’s not, at least for me.”

“I think I’m done,” Laris announced, tying off the last strand. She offered it to her husband. “Would you like to try it on?”

It fit a little loosely, the neckline uneven and the sleeves had a two centimetres difference in length, but it was a perfectly functional sweater. The colour suited him, at the very least, and he seemed happy enough with it on. He played a few short melodies before putting it to the side. Zhaban settled next to her, arm wrapped around her shoulders, and focused back on the conversation. 

“Thank you very much, Laris,” he said, kissing her cheek. “And well done on winning.”

She leaned into his side appreciatively and took in a deep breath. It had been a quiet day before Beverly had arrived home, most of the workers having finished several hours before she had even arrived, and even Echo had been respecting the silence. Now it was getting into the night and things were only then beginning to liven up again. 

“Please tell me that you’re going to ease back into training,” Beverly pleaded. “You’ve had more than enough broken bones when you’re completely healthy, I really don’t want to imagine what you might do to yourselves if you’re not too careful.”

“We’ll do our best,” Laris promised. “No more broken bones until the next assessment.”


	8. Year Eight

“That was a good party, wasn’t it?” Zhaban asked as Laris came out of the bathroom, freshly showered. She hummed in agreement as she was drying her hair. “Humans certainly enjoy their new year celebrations.”

“Nothing like what we would do on Romulus,” she replied, hanging the towel out. “A lot of fun traditions, and I bet I know your favourite one.”

“Really?” he asked teasingly, holding her waist and pulling her close. After a night of drinking, even with their higher metabolisms in comparison to humans, they were gone beyond tipsy and Zhaban was feeling much more relaxed than he would have normally after spending so long with a lot of strangers. “What’s that?”

“Kissing at midnight, even in a crowd full of people.”

“Any time I get to kiss you is my favourite,” he shrugged. Laris smiled at him softly. “We definitely couldn’t do that on Romulus, though.”

Laris leaned up and kissed him again, tasting the wine they had been drinking earlier, arms wrapping around his neck. Their noses brushed together as they broke apart, not wanting to separate too far. Zhaban’s hand slipped underneath her sleepshirt, fingers brushing over her skin almost reverently. 

“No, we would never have seen the light of day again,” Laris sighed. “With everyone else kissing, we probably blended in. Though we were far more reserved than some of the other couples.”

“I think that’s normal for us,” Zhaban reminded her. “The locals still think it’s strange that we rarely hold hands in company, let alone doing anything else.”

“They’re a little strange in comparison,” she said. “I know we rarely went out in public with each other back on Romulus but I always preferred to keep any signs of affection inside. As much as I love you, and I love you a lot, but I rarely felt an urge to want to be as open as human couples are.”

“I love you too,” he said quietly, eyes sparkling in amusement. They climbed into bed messily, not wanting to be apart from each other but also too inebriated to really think straight, and curled up together. 

They were hungover when they woke up but in a far better state than their housemates who only managed to leave their bedrooms, clearly suffering, sometime after lunch. By that point Laris and Zhaban had mostly recovered, enough to be functioning people again, and slid coffee and a large fry up under their friends' noses, with the promise of a curing hypospray once they finished. Beverly had always preferred patients to eat and drink before treating them for something so relatively minor. 

“Did you both have fun?” Laris teased when they were looking a little healthier. Picard shot her a withering look before leaning back against his wife again.

“Not enough to make up for this,” Beverly replied with a groan. “What about the two of you? You’re not this old yet; I’m sure you handled yourselves better.”

“It was good,” Zhaban said, sitting next to Laris with an arm around her shoulders. “And it was nice to see all of the workers having fun.”

“Oh, that reminds me, Lucie’s going to propose to Sandra next week,” Beverly told them excitedly, which was enough to perk up her husband. “She’s planned out a big dinner for the two of them this Friday and then she’s going to ask once they’ve finished, told me all about it last night.”

“How lovely,” Jean Luc said earnestly. “They’ve been together quite some time now, haven’t they?”

“Five years,” Zhaban said, “They had the weekend off a couple months ago for their anniversary.”

“I know that’s quite a while by human standards, how long are Romulans together before they get married?” Beverly asked curiously.

“Around a decade or so,” Laris replied. “But it’s not uncommon to wait longer; we’re fairly untrusting and we can live to two hundred.”

“I thought you said you were married after four years,” Jean Luc said. Beverly’s eyes widened at that information. 

Though they had become much closer with their housemates in the eight years they had known each other, it was pure habit to keep secrets, especially ones that could have gotten them killed if the wrong person knew. Anything to do with their relationship had been kept under lock and key, barring a few people who they knew would find out, like Zhaban’s parents. Laris could vaguely remember telling the admiral how long they had been together when they’d first come to earth, just to give him some information to put him more at ease. She hadn’t realised he wouldn’t mention it to his wife, most likely assuming that they would tell her. 

“We’ve known each other since we were children,” Zhaban shrugged carefully. “My mother was Laris’ first handler, when we were ten. So we had known each other a very long time when we got married, we just hadn’t been together romantically for very long.”

  
  


<>

  
  


“Do you remember when I proposed?” Zhaban asked quietly as Laris laid on top of him that night. His hand was rubbing small circles into her back and he had set aside his book in favour of stroking through her hair hours before. 

“Of course,” she smiled. “But I asked you first.”

“I know,” he replied, smiling ruefully. “I had a big long speech prepared, practiced it for weeks and weeks, about how much I love you and how I don’t ever want to live without you and right as I was opening my mouth to tell you, you turn to me and say we should get married in the morning, no ceremony.”

“I thought you were waiting for me to ask,” Laris protested happily, the two of them having had the conversation thousands of times in the years since the event. It was her favourite argument of theirs, loving the memories that it brought up. “And it wasn’t like you were upset to hear that I wanted to marry you, I should like to think.”

“No,” Zhaban agreed, kissing her temple before shifting them so that he could look her in the eye. She stroked his cheek. “No, I was very happy to hear it. And I was a little less nervous about my speech. Helped me have the courage to tell you everything.”

“You knew I wanted to marry you before that night, though,” Laris said, confused. She knew he’d been a little nervous about asking her but Zhaban had never mentioned that he felt it as much as he was implying then. “We’d talked about it dozens of times, we had to.”

“Yes, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you and the idea of you not wanting that is terrifying. It was a brief lapse in judgement because of nerves. I certainly never doubted you,” he explained, ears tinged green at the tips. “Once you’d said yes, I was thinking clearly again and I knew it was foolish to doubt that.”

“Is that why you’ve not told me before?” Laris prompted softly, fingers trailing over the shell of his ear, turning the skin even brighter green for, hopefully, a different reason. 

“I suppose.”

“I love you, you know,” she began, kissing the top of his forehead and trailing down to meet his lips. “I love you so much. I’ve loved you since I first met you, even if I didn’t know it, and I will love you for the rest of my life. There is nothing that could ever change that, okay? Nothing that might happen, nothing that you could tell me, will ever change that. You’ve got me for life.”

“I love you too,” Zhaban told her, tucking her hair behind her ears so he could cup her face. “And I will love you for the rest of my life too.”

“Good,” she said firmly. “I think it’s time we went to sleep. We had a late night, yesterday, didn’t we?.”

  
  


<>

  
  


They attended the engagement party of Lucie and Sandra two weeks later along with almost all of the residents of La Barre. Small towns meant that everyone knew everyone and whilst it held too many security concerns to count when they had first arrived on earth, Laris could appreciate that it was good for the other residents. Her and Zhaban stuck to the edges of the party, neither of them ever comfortable when they were near the centre of attention, but made sure to give the happy couple their congratulations. 

“I still don’t completely understand this tradition,” Zhaban admitted to her, whispering in her ear to make sure no one heard them. “Surely everything that people are celebrating would fit better with the wedding itself.”

“Human weddings take a long time to plan,” Laris replied, “And they don’t want to wait that long to celebrate.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement and wrapped an arm around her waist. With everyone drinking and celebrating they felt a little bit freer in showing affection for each other, not free enough to ever consider dancing with many of the other people at the party, and Zhaban took full advantage of it. Laris leaned into him slightly, appreciating his warmth. They were still in the winter months and even though they had acclimatised the evening air tended to chill them. 

“Do you ever wish we’d had a party when we’d got engaged or married?” he asked. Laris grinned.

“Not particularly. We were married in the morning and I liked the way we celebrated by ourselves,” she said. “But I can understand why humans do it. Why? Do you wish we’d had a party?”

“No. Even having my parents show up a few weeks after was too much, I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been if everyone we knew had shown up to celebrate.”

“We don’t like your parents, they were terrible to you,” Laris reminded him. “Sandra and Lucie like everyone here.”

“That’s fair.”

Zhaban pulled her slightly closer to him, shivering as a gentle breeze blew through the area. Some of the town children rushed past them, heading over to the dessert table, a few of them calling out apologies over their shoulders. After so many years in La Barre they had far fewer problems than when they first arrived, even if some of the people still didn’t entirely trust them, and it was nice to not have to deal with those issues as well as their security concerns.

“Did you ever think our lives would come to this?” Laris asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence. “If, back on Romulus, someone had said that we would be invited to a human engagement party, as friends the couple’s, would you have believed them?”

“Of course not,” Zhaban chuckled. “But I’m quite fond of the lives we’ve led.”


	9. Year Nine

Laris blocked Zhaban’s punch, moving in quickly to grab his arm, throwing him over her hip. She climbed on top before he could get up, trapping his legs underneath her, knocking his practice knife out of his hand and holding her own to his throat. Zhaban went limp after three seconds, accepting defeat, head flopping back on the floor with a tired smile. Laris shifted to be sitting up, straddling her husband.

“I win,” she told him smugly, kissing the tip of his nose to lessen the blow. 

“That you did,” Zhaban agreed, hands going to her waist, thumbs rubbing small circles against her. “First time since you’ve been allowed to spar.”

“Back to normal,” Laris said. She stretched her arms out and winced slightly. “Almost back to normal. Still a little sore.”

“Want to stop here?” he offered. “Quit while you’re ahead?”

She swatted his chest playfully and stood up, offering a hand for Zhaban to help him. Putting her practice knife on the side, Laris began stretching properly. Beverly had been very strict with her physiotherapy and had a completely tailored stretching regime for mornings, bedtimes and pre and post training. Zhaban joined her during the exercises, his own normal routine much shorter. It was good for him as well, obviously, but she knew he only did it to keep her company. 

Zhaban rolled his eyes fondly and packed away the practice knives and the mats they sparred on. When they had still been part of the Tal Shiar they had used real knives and fought on the hard ground. If they were injured, it was due to them not being alert enough to keep themselves safe. In La Barre, Beverly worried about them becoming hurt unnecessarily and so they switched to safer options. It wasn’t much of a change to them, they had never purposefully hurt each other no matter how intense their sparring got. 

“It feels good to win again,” Laris told him as she began undressing, letting the shower turn on as soon as they returned to their room. “Repeatedly losing was probably the worst part of recovery.”

“I thought it was being bedridden?” Zhaban asked her. “Even losing, you’re still allowed to get up and move.”

“It was having to build back all of the strength and stamina that I used to have, knowing how it used to feel but having to learn it all again,” she explained, stepping under the spray and turning to face him. “Joining me?”

Zhaban grinned and hastily undressed, embracing his wife immediately. His hands found her wet curls, untangling them absent mindedly whilst they let the water pour over them. Laris seemed content enough to stay in his arms for at least a little while longer though they knew they would have to actually wash themselves at some point. Sparring always worked up quite a sweat. 

"You know, there was one part of recovery I didn't mind," she began to say slyly. Zhaban raised an eyebrow. "When you were training without me and I got to boss you around."

He laughed.

"I thought you were going to say you enjoyed watching me train, given how much you stared," he replied, cupping her face to give her a kiss. It was Laris' turn to laugh that time. 

"I can multitask," she told him. "Besides, I'm allowed to appreciate my husband."

"I appreciated your appreciation," he joked. "Even if I sometimes threw my shirt at you."

They eventually got out of the shower, drying off enough to climb into bed, unable to be more than a few inches apart from each other. Zhaban brushed his fingers down the line of her neck before going up the same path to trace over the shell of her ear. A thought occurred to him, briefly, brought on by their earlier conversation.

“Could you hear us talking to you, when you first got sick?” he asked quietly. Laris’ brow furrowed in concentration.

“I knew you were there,” she told him slowly. “And I knew you were saying things to me, you, Beverly and the admiral, but I couldn’t often make out the words. You read to me, didn’t you? The book you got me for my birthday. I could make out your words the easiest, I know that much.”

“I spoke in Rihan,” Zhaban explained. “That’s probably why you understood me easiest.”

“You said other things too,” Laris pressed. She looked confused for a moment and then grinned. “You said you like my ears?”

“I do,” he replied, grinning as well. He kissed the tip of the one he had previously stroked over. “I like your ears very much. You have beautiful ears, attached to a beautiful face, with the most perfect eyes I have ever seen.”

With each compliment he kissed her softly, almost unable to because he was smiling so widely. Laris moved closer, hand cupping his cheek with her thumb brushing over his skin almost reverently. Her legs entwined with his, practically locking them together, and he sighed at the contact. Even though they knew her recovery was almost completely over, she had just won a proper sparring match for the first time, it still weighed heavily on their minds and the memory of spending months sleeping apart from each other, unable to hold on to each other like they had always done since coming to earth, still haunted them slightly.

“I love you,” he murmured against her lips.

“You’re going grey.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious, Zhaban,” she said, looking through his hair and smiling. “All at your temples and sort of spreading out. And in your beard. We’re getting old.”

Despite how sleepy they had been only a few moments before, Zhaban ready to drop off right there, Laris had become very excited. They had known when they got together, they had known when they first met as children, that joining the Tal Shiar usually meant you didn’t live very long, not a full Romulan lifespan and rarely even a full human lifespan. And even though they had spent almost a decade on earth, no longer part of the Tal Shiar, it hadn’t fully set in for either of them that they might be able to grow old, together. 

“That’s the closest to complimenting my beard you’ve ever come,” he teased kindly. “Now I know we’re getting old.”

“I’m still not thrilled about it,” Laris told him even as she stroked over it gently. “But if you insist that you like it, I suppose I can tolerate it. For you.”

“Thank you,” Zhaban replied, laughing. “I’m touched.”

“Did you ever think we’d be able to grow old together?” Laris asked once they had calmed down again. “Did you think we would want to grow old together, back when we first met?”

“When we first met I knew I wanted to spend forever with you,” Zhaban began. “I didn’t realise I was in love with you, though, I think I just thought that was what best friends did. It took me a good decade to realise it.”

“Well, we were both quite slow to realise that,” she said. “Besides, how many ten-year-olds really know what love is? I’m just touched that you thought of me as your best friend.”

“I knew you were important to me and that was the closest description of it,” he defended himself, kissing her temple as they moved closer together. “And getting back to your first question, I wasn’t certain we’d be able to grow old together, but it was my greatest hope.”

Laris, tucked against him firmly and definitely not moving until morning came, smiled against him. They’d talked about it before, mostly when they were doing missions together, pretending to be a married couple involved in some business the Tal Shiar wanted control of, but never had the concept of growing old been a reality as opposed to some far off dream they talked about when they couldn’t sleep, hidden away in the safety of blankets and each other. 

“Did you think we would grow old together?” Zhaban asked her.

“No,” she told him truthfully. “We’d got lucky enough to find each other and be together, I always thought that luck would run out after a few years. I’m very,  _ very  _ happy it didn’t.”

Zhaban kissed her temple again, waiting for the small amount of tension in Laris’ shoulders that had built up at the question to fall away again. She had always been a little more practical about things than him and her answer didn’t surprise him at all. Their good luck in finding each other and being able to stay with each other had been miraculous and they were both well aware of the dangers of being together from the beginning. 

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” she replied. “I still think kissing you all those years ago is the best decision I’ve ever made.”

“I think I can agree with that,” Zhaban replied. “I don’t think I could have ever built up the courage to do it. I’d spent literal years talking myself through the pros and cons and I still couldn’t.”

“Talk me through it,” she asked softly. 

“Well, the cons were that it was dangerous to be involved with each other, we might not be allowed to work together anymore, my parents would be insufferably interested the second they found out, I loved being your friend and I didn’t want to ruin that and, most terrifyingly, I was worried that you would reject me,” he listed, twisting one of her curls around his finger. “And the pros were that I loved you and even the idea of you loving me back was better than anything I could dream. What about you? What made you decide to kiss me?”

“I looked over at you that night and I just knew I couldn’t love anyone else,” Laris shrugged, face burrowing closer to him. “And all I wanted was for you to know that. Since I didn’t know how to put that into words without terrifying you, I kissed you. Not quite as methodical as you.”

“We swapped,” Zhaban joked. “I was methodical and you were emotional. And I’m so glad you kissed me. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.”

Laris tightened her grip on him and, without even realising it, his true name slipped past her lips. She could feel Zhaban’s grin, even if she couldn’t see it, could feel how happy that one quietly said word made him, and she shivered as he whispered her own, filled with so much love she thought she was going to burst. His hand continued stroking through her hair, becoming slower and heavier as sleep finally took them. 


	10. Year Ten

Echo died in her sleep.

She had been getting older, more tired, not as energetic as she was in her earlier years, and it hadn’t been too surprising, just upsetting. The worst part had been the three of them telling Beverly, who was away for another six months, over a call, especially since it meant that she would be able to bury the dog with them and she would fret more about the Admiral being on his own. 

Neither Laris nor Zhaban had had pets growing up and once they were formally part of the Tal Shiar, pets were an unnecessary attachment and would cause too many problems. They had known losing a pet was difficult, had understood it as a concept even before Echo, and had known once the dog was in their lives that it would be difficult once she was gone. But even still, they were surprised by how much they missed Echo.

“I keep forgetting not to set out lunch for her,” Zhaban admitted as they went over the security feeds for the night. It had been silent except for the quiet audio but Laris didn’t mind the break, even if the subject was more emotional than she really thought she could handle at that point. 

“Just force of habit,” she reassured. “Give it time and it’ll get easier, I promise.”

He took her hand, holding it in both of his, and squeezed it softly. There wasn’t a lot happening on the feeds, even when they were watching the workers it was subdued, everyone grieving the dog. 

There weren’t dogs on Romulus, not really, and they had nothing at all resembling the cats that roamed about the vineyard searching for the rare mouse that managed to get through the repellants unscathed. But families that had pets, because everything was done as a family, treasured them like they treasured a particularly prodigious child. When a pet died it wasn’t uncommon for the family to go into brief mourning, the paints chosen lasting only a handful of days at most, and it was more ceremony than a failed child being terminated received. 

Laris’ family had never followed the tradition of painting when in grief, one of her distant ancestors hadn’t and so the rest of the family didn’t as a matter of principle, and Zhaban’s family were Tal Shiar, they weren’t allowed any sign of attachment. As it was, they didn’t paint any mourning patterns onto their arms. Zhaban had traced a simple one with his finger along Laris’ wrist the first night, going over it repeatedly until sleep came a little easier, but it was nothing that showed. 

“I know Beverly said she should be back a little sooner than previously planned,” Laris began as she switched the feed. “But that’s still at least four and a half months, and that’s if they don’t run into any trouble like they usually do. We should probably get the admiral involved in something, to keep him busy and take his mind off of Echo.”

“The fete’s coming up soon,” Zhaban suggested. “We could try to convince him to do something there. It’ll take a while to organise, which should distract him enough.”

“It shouldn’t be hard to convince him about the fete, it’s just all of the children at the fete that he won’t be keen on,” she said, smiling. She’d personally never wanted children and, as such, never had them, but she was reasonably good with the ones she spent time with and certainly understood why the vast majority of many species chose to procreate. The admiral, whilst he loved and cared for his friends’ children, the children in the village and, of course, his step-son, who was no longer much of a child, was very bad with them. 

“We’ll just make a very complicated maze for them all to get stuck in,” he shrugged, smiling at his wife’s laugh. “It’s being combined with the town over, this year, isn’t it? That’s why it’s a little earlier?”

“Yes, something about a community project,” Laris replied, wrinkling her nose slightly. Pets held a similar position in Romulan society as they did in human society. The value of community, not so much. “Lots of children for the admiral to contend with, and all so excited to meet Admiral Jean-Luc Picard.”

“He can tell them all stories, that should definitely keep them all busy.”

  
  


<>

  
  


“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Jean Luc grumbled as he sat at his little hand made stall. “What am I meant to do if they ask me a question?”

“You answer it,” Laris told him bluntly. “Maybe soften it if the answer is too mature for a child to hear, but I doubt they’ll ask anything too severe.”

Zhaban was away to set up the maze, he had joined in for the planning and had made it a little more complicated than the previous year, though to a reasonable standard, and had left them snickering at how grumpy the admiral was. Laris was beginning to regret not going with him. 

“What stories am I meant to be telling them?”

“You decided on two stories about Q,” Laris reminded him, “A story about a simple away mission and a story about your crew. Nice, simple and something they probably haven’t heard before. And remember, a lot of these children are from another town, so they won’t know you as well. You’re still a very formidable person for them.”

It was difficult to view him as a difficult person when he looked like an octogenarian sitting in a wooden box with a pout, but he had a recognisable face and all of the children knew he was going to be there. Laris waved over to the baker who had made Zhaban’s last birthday cake only a month before and Jean Luc sat in thought.

“What if they ask why I left Starfleet?”

“Tell them you’re old. It’s not even a lie.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without your kind wisdom, Laris, truly.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Zhaban, unlike a previous year, did not sprain his ankle helping out at the fete. He did, however, manage to break it twenty minutes into the festivities which led to them both waiting by the medical room for it to be fixed. Cuts and bruises were easy to heal with a dermal regenerator. Broken bones, even fractured bones, were a little bit more complicated. 

“Maybe stay away from the chocolate tonight, if this is how you’re going to be sober,” Laris said, teasingly, hand on his shoulder. Zhaban looked a little embarrassed but stretched out on one of the temporarily constructed beds with his foot being strapped in place, it was hard not to be embarrassed. 

“I’m glad you find my suffering entertaining,” he said even as he leaned into her touch. 

There was a slight commotion just outside of the little room and a man with two children, one young, no more than eight, and another older, around ten, walked in with Dr Benayoun. The boy, the older one, was guided carefully to a bed by the man who looked to be their father, whilst his sister hopped around the room excitedly. They were from the town over, Laris didn’t recognise them and neither did Zhaban, but the part that stood out to them the most was that they were half-Romulan. 

Whilst many other species had a hard time telling the difference between a Vulcan and a Southern Romulan, Northern Romulans being easily distinguishable because of their ridges, Vulcans and Romulans just knew. Laris knew they were half-Romulan because their very sheepish looking father was human and that the point of their ears wasn’t as prominent as a full Romulan. The girl spotted them and grinned, palms opened up. 

“Jolan tru,” she greeted cheerfully. 

“Jolan tru, little one,” Laris responded in kind, palms opening up the same as Zhaban. “Are you alright?”

“Daddy forgot we can’t have hot chocolate and let Rilla have a whole cup of it,” she told them happily. “And now he’s talking all silly.”

Their father flushed an even brighter red, supporting his clearly tipsy ten-year-old. Dr Benayoun was readying a hypospray for him, the tricorder beeping with the results of, presumably, his blood alcohol level. Based on his slightly smaller stature, his young age and the fact that most of the sellers at the fete preferred to make it quite strong, it was going to be quite high. 

“Well, I’m sure the good doctor will make sure he gets better,” Zhaban told her. “I’m Zhaban. This is my wife Laris. What’s your name?”

“Sora. Why’s your foot all wrapped up?”

“He’s been very silly and tripped and broken his ankle,” Laris explained. 

“Rilla started falling over a lot after he had the hot chocolate. Did you drink it too?”

“No, I just wasn’t looking where I was going,” Zhaban told her.

Rilla was given a hypospray and told to wait a while for the alcohol to completely burn through his system, meaning that Dr Benayoun was free to treat Zhaban’s ankle. Sora talked to them the entire time, telling them that she went to the school nearby the town with the other children, that her brother was going to go to secondary school soon and leaving her, that she was very much looking forward to the maze and that her mother was away with work and so sent her a video every day to keep her busy. Laris said the occasional comment when the girl had to pause for breath but otherwise couldn’t get a word in edgewise. 

“Bye bye!” Sora called as the two of them left the room, going to pester her brother instead.

It was a quiet walk back to the rest of the fete, everyone else already there and leaving the path empty for Zhaban to test his newly healed ankle on. Completely fine, but he knew that Laris would want to check it, just to make sure, when they went to bed that night.

“Sora, she couldn’t have been more than eight, could she?” Laris asked. “I mean, she’s still in primary education, as is her brother.”

“Yes, I believe so,” Zhaban replied, confused as to why she was asking.

“She would have been born after Romulus was gone. Her brother must have been born around the time of the Mars attack,” Laris explained. “How strange, they’ve clearly been brought up in at least a similar way to most Romulan children, far more talkative, but they’ll never know what Romulus was like.”

Zhaban wasn’t sure what to say to that, wasn’t sure if there was anything he could say to take his wife’s mind off of the slightly dark subject it had fallen on, and so gently took her hand instead, swinging it ever so slightly between them. The fete still had hours left and, undoubtedly, they would bump into Sora and Rilla again at some point during it where he knew the girl would bombard them with information again. Until that point, they were going to go to the admiral’s stall and watch him struggle to cope with children for a little while, probably recording it to send to Beverly who was yet again regretfully missing the fete. 


	11. Year Eleven

Laris grinned against her husband’s mouth, their earlier activities having calmed down to lazy kisses before the alarm went off, and felt his hand cup the back of her head delicately. They still had a few minutes left, a few minutes pressed against each other, before they needed to get up, having plans for the rest of the day, and she was going to make the most of it. Zhaban definitely felt the same way, trailing a line of kisses from her mouth, along her jaw to behind her ear. Just as he began moving back, detouring slightly to kiss her neck, the alarm went off.

“Time to get up,” she mumbled, not moving from where she was laying. Underneath the blankets they had a little bubble of warmth and she was loath to leave it. Zhaban reached out blindly and managed to get the beeping to stop before he went back to holding her, carding his fingers through her hair. “Don’t want to be late.”

“We can be a little late,” he replied. 

They spent another few minutes together in bed, waking up properly with the lethargy slowly leaking away, before climbing out from under the blankets and going into the bathroom to shower. The water was hot, cold showers weren’t a thing on Romulus, the benefits humans got from cold showers didn’t apply to them and as they were on Earth it was good to feel truly warm, and it steamed up the room quickly. As opposed to the warmth of their bed, the warmth of the shower woke them up, much more alert when they got out to get dressed. 

It was Zhaban’s birthday and they had decided to go to the nearby museum again, one of the newer exhibits about the history of Trill symbionts being of interest to him. Zhaban was excited for it, they’d gone over the security for the entire building in preparation so they didn’t need to be overly concerned, and Laris, as always, found it infectious. They had the usual dinner with the Admiral and Beverly in the evening, the cake being picked up sometime around lunchtime, but the rest of the day was for the two of them. 

“I’ve got your present,” Laris told him with a grin, holding the wrapped package behind her back. “Do you want it now?”

“Sure,” he replied, taking the package from her carefully. It was simple brown paper with string wrapped around, soft. “This is exciting. Thank you.”

Zhaban undid the string and ripped off the paper to reveal a new knitted sweater. It was a dark green colour, soft, and, thankfully, fitted him perfectly, wearing it immediately. Laris adjusted the collar, brushing over his neck affectionately, and kissed him. 

“You want to know something?” she asked. Zhaban cocked his head curiously. “I’ve spent the past month or so knitting this.”

The affectionate look of surprise on his face and she let out a little laugh. Despite her complaints about how much she disliked knitting, and she really didn’t enjoy it, Zhaban had very much appreciated the sweater she had made him even though it didn’t quite fit and had an occasional hole. So when she was trying to think of a present he would appreciate, Laris decided on making him something like she had before. The affection in his eyes made sure she knew it was appreciated. 

“I love you,” he told her softly, kissing her. “Thank you, Laris.”

“I love you too,” she replied. “Happy birthday.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Zhaban was reading one of the explanations of the display they were in front of, taking his time to enjoy it. They were fast readers, Tal Shiar training had demanded that they could read quickly and completely absorb and process what they had read, but there was a difference between scanning a mission brief for the important information and learning about something they were interested in. Laris had scanned the explanation when she noticed Zhaban taking an interest in it, sliding her hand into his in a far more relaxed manner than they would have done when they first arrived on earth.

The museum was a local one, small with only one or two moderately sized events which were usually aimed at the local school children, so most of the visitors either knew or knew of them. It put them less at risk to deal with a confrontation and they didn’t have to deal with stares. After a lifetime of mastering how to hide in plain sight, being stared at for simply existing had been difficult to contend with.

“Once we’ve gone through the next room do you want to get lunch?” Zhaban asked, squeezing her hand slightly as they moved out of the way for a small group of children to gaze out the glance, talking excitedly to each other in a garbled mix of French and Standard. “We’ll be about halfway through by then.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she replied. 

A few of the people they passed that they knew waved slightly in greeting to them, not approaching but acknowledging them. It wasn’t common knowledge that it was Zhaban’s birthday but it wasn’t difficult to figure out, especially by the workers that they saw on a daily basis and therefore they knew quite well. Laris was grateful that they weren’t approached. Zhaban was particularly enjoying it all and she was enjoying watching him get so excited. 

His face was showing it in a far subtler way than humans could easily recognise but the light in his eyes and the badly hidden smile was wonderfully clear to her. Laris squeezed his hand, the same way he had done before, and followed him around the next room, glancing over the displays but focusing primarily on her husband.

“Having fun?” Laris asked as they sat down to eat. 

“It’s great,” he replied. “I think my favourite part so far has been the one in the main hall, about the effects of insect bites. It’s so strange how they’ve developed to combine two multiple minds in one person for generations and generations. But the little bite of very common species on their planet that are otherwise harmless can be fatal.”

“It is strange,” Laris agreed. “But I suppose there would be some drawbacks to it all.”

  
  


<>

  
  


They walked back to the Chateau in the early evening, the sun having not begun to set and leaving them, in their three layers, pleasantly warm. Laris kept her hand in Zhaban’s the entire day, bumping their shoulders together every so often and grinning at how it made him smile. The past few weeks had been very busy, preparing for the harvest, and Laris had been hidden away for a couple of hours every other day to work on his present, so it felt especially good to spend some time alone with him. 

“We didn’t have very many school trips, did we?” Zhaban asked. There had been a class of children running around the museum in twos and threes for most of the day, all polite and patient, with three tired looking teachers following them all. “I can only remember one; when we went to visit the Senate.”

“It wasn’t a particularly eventful trip,” Laris said. “We just looked at the empty Senate Hall to listen to someone tell us what we’d spent months learning. And then we had to regurgitate it all to our parents when we got back home. How old were we? Thirteen?”

“Fourteen,” Zhaban corrected. “It was the same year we started preparing for the final assessments.”

Laris leaned against his side again, savouring the familiar sensation, and felt Zhaban lay a kiss on top of her head, face buried in her curls for a few moments. School had not been particularly enjoyable for them, or many Romulans. They were competing to prove that they were going to be productive members of Romulan society, competing against each other and themselves. Both of them had powerful families who had very high expectations of them, weighing on them heavily.

Unlike a lot of their classmates, they had each other to talk to about their stresses and concerns, to commiserate and train together. Laris knew she wouldn’t have done as well if she didn’t have Zhaban there to challenge and support her and he felt the same way. Even if she hadn’t known it at the time she had been in love with him from the first meeting and it meant she would do anything to keep him with her. Laris didn’t doubt their parents had been somewhat aware of their bond with each other, it wasn’t hard to see, especially with how well they worked together, but they had certainly been surprised when the two of them eventually got together. 

After spending the entire day walking around a human museum on Earth, showing affection, even a minimal amount, in public, Laris was so incredibly grateful to the universe for putting them into each other’s lives. 

  
  


<>

  
  


“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!” they sang as Jean-Luc carried in the cake, candles lighting up the room. “Happy birthday to Zhaban! Happy birthday to you!”

The cake was laid in front of him, the candles were blown out and they all cheered. Laris kissed Zhaban’s temple affectionately as the cake was being cut, an arm resting around his shoulders. Zhaban reached up, taking her hand in his own, and leaned into her touch. They distributed slices of cake, with no chocolate, as always, and settled at the table. 

“Was the exhibit museum any good?” Jean Luc asked. “The local school had a trip there, didn’t they?”

“It was really good,” Zhaban told them excitedly. “It went far more in-depth than I was expecting which was good. And the school did have the trip today, there was a class in the museum. The teachers looked very stressed trying to keep track of them all.”

“Twenty kids and only a few adults, I have no idea how teachers do it,” Jean Luc said. “They didn’t cause any problems in the museum did they?”

“No, they were quite lovely,” Laris said. “Very polite and they weren’t very loud which was good of them considering how young and excited they looked.”


	12. Year Twelve

“I’ve brought you a drink,” Zhaban said, coming into the secondary shed. It was a little cooler than the outside, mostly because of the lack of windows, but still hot. It was about the average temperature for where they were from on Romulus but after over a decade on earth they were unaccustomed to it. “How are you feeling?”

“A little warm,” Laris admitted, accepting the cool drink gratefully. Out of the sun she wasn’t suffering much but Zhaban had flushed light green, his cheeks and the inner lines of his ridges bright with the colour. The tips of his ears were looking slightly burned as well, probably because his hat was hanging by his side instead of resting on his head. “What about you? You’ve been out in the sun for a while.”

“Not too bad,” he said, taking a deep sip of his own drink. “We’ve definitely gone soft.”

She smiled at him, putting down her padd to take a sip. The drink was a human one, called lemonade, she thought, and it wasn’t uncommon in the summer for the workers to take frequent breaks for the drink. It was the first year that they had really struggled in the heat but it was also the hottest summer since coming to earth. Laris stroked down his ear, frowning slightly as he flinched. They were a little more burnt than she had assumed, the skin sore and very warm, and it couldn’t be pleasant. 

“I’ve got a dermal regenerator if you want it,” Laris. “And maybe keep your hat on when you go back out.”

“That might be necessary,” Zhaban admitted, having enough sense to look embarrassed. 

He sat down as Laris went to grab it from one of the drawers. Her touch was gentle as she began healing the small burns, holding his head still with a hand on his cheek. Zhaban leaned into her touch, holding her hand to him even as Laris put the regenerator away to the side, kissing the palm of her hand. She stroked over one of his ridges, and trailed her touch down to tap the tip of his nose. 

“Feeling any better?” Laris asked. Zhaban nodded. 

“All better,” he agreed, hands finding her waist. 

“Good,” she replied, taking his hat and placing it firmly on his head. “Keep this on you when you go back out and maybe you won’t get so burned.”

“Will do.”

Zhaban leaned up and kissed her softly, hands on her waist drawing her closer to him. She only wore two layers it was so warm and he had taken off the sweater he’d been wearing that morning, his shirt thin enough that Laris could feel the heat of him through it. Her hands went to cup the back of his head, fingers running through short hair, and she kissed him again. 

“I love you,” he mumbled against her mouth. Laris grinned almost giddily.

“I love you too.”

  
  


<>

  
  


“I hate summer,” Beverly complained as she sat in the medical room. Laris snorted. 

“You were saying how much you loved summer yesterday,” she reminded the other woman.

“And now my skin is lobster red and burned and I hate summer,” Beverly groaned. As fast as medical advances made the healing process, every inch of her skin that had been exposed was burned and it was taking Laris a while to go over it all. “Even Jean-Luc isn’t this badly burned and he doesn’t even have hair!”

“If it makes you feel any better, Zhaban was a little burned when he came in to see me earlier,” Laris said, moving to her friend’s other shoulder which was already looking like it was painfully peeling. “Had to heal the points of his ears.”

“It does make me feel a little better,” she admitted. “But he wasn’t wearing his hat so it’s his own fault. Actually, do those hats fit you properly with your ears? I don’t want you wearing them if they’re pushing down or uncomfortable.”

“No, he was just being an idiot. Completely his own fault. And I think Jean-Luc isn’t as badly burned because he remembered sun cream and stayed in the shade whilst you’ve spent the entire day in the sun.”

Beverly huffed but didn’t say anything to counter it, most probably because there wasn’t anything she could say. It took fifteen minutes to take care of the rest of the sunburn. The rest of the household were also somewhere between tanned and burned, Laris saved after spending the entire day inside doing inventory, and were in the kitchen preparing dinner. 

Laris, when they had first come to earth, hadn’t seen the point of cooking if they had a replicator but assumed it was a human tradition. After a few years, with Zhaban finding that he enjoyed cooking and Laris finding that she enjoyed watching him cook, she quite liked actual cooked meals. She rarely did it herself but helped Zhaban when he was there, the two of them trying Romulan meals with a mix of human ingredients they would get from the market and replicated Romulan ingredients. The meals never tasted bad, Zhaban was too good of a cook for that, but it didn’t always taste the way they were supposed to.

“All done,” Laris declared, putting the regenerator into charge for when someone else inevitably got burned the next day. There was always at least one worker who stayed out a little too long. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Just my pride,” Beverly replied. “A redhead should know to be more careful. So should a doctor, actually.”

Dinner was almost ready when they came into the kitchen, the table already set, so Beverly grabbed a bottle of wine from the cellar and Laris teased her husband about forgetting to wear his hat. In turn, Zhaban shook the water off his hands in her direction, a large number of droplets hitting her. 

“Very mature, Zhaban,” Laris told him mockingly, wiping some of the water off of her face. 

“The only appropriate response,” he replied, kissing her cheek as he carried the large bowl he’d been filling up to the table. “Could you grab the other plate for me?”

Dinner was quiet and lasted far longer than usual, the heat making everyone drowsy, even the most alert spies would have struggled under the conditions. Laris still had a little bit of work left to do, she had checked over the security footage whilst fixing a bug in the database and wanted to make modifications to some of the cameras, but Zhaban was free for the rest of the evening so they retired back to their room once the meal was over.

“I’ve missed being warm when we go outside,” Zhaban admitted as he pulled his shirt off, getting changed. “I’d practically forgotten what it felt like.”

“It is nice,” she agreed. “Was there a reason you came to see me earlier? Other than bringing me a drink, I mean.”   
  


Zhaban shrugged. “The heat was making me feel a little nostalgic about when we were kids and that made me want to see you.”

“Any memory in particular?”

“Would you call me cliched if I told you our first kiss?”

“Completely,” Laris laughed. She walked over to him, abandoning the security camera she had been messing with, and wrapped her arms around him. “But now what I want to know is if you were thinking of the first time we kissed as a couple, or the  _ very _ first kiss.”

“The  _ very _ first kiss,” he said. “Our first kiss ever.”

Laris could remember it very clearly. They were teenagers, just, and talking about their classmates. She had mentioned, off-handedly, that a boy in their class liked her and that he had been planning on asking her on a date. Even before he’d asked her Laris knew she would have said no but she had told Zhaban anyway because they’d always told each other everything. Zhaban had asked her if she’d ever kissed anyone before which, at the time, had seemed strange since she would have told him if she had, but with hindsight she knew it was a little bit of jealousy but neither of them had really known that. 

One of them had suggested, she didn’t quite know who, that they could be each other’s first kiss because then they wouldn’t have to be bad at it when the time actually came for them to kiss someone they liked. Laris wasn’t proud of how oblivious to their own feelings they were but she didn’t regret it. 

“That was when you realised you liked me,” she teased softly. He’d told her the story shortly after they had gotten together, flushed with embarrassment. 

“You took a little longer,” he replied and Laris lightly whacked his chest in mock anger.

“Only a few months longer,” she pointed out. “And I was the one who kissed you when we did get together.”

“Well, after you told me I needed more practice when we first kissed, you can hardly blame me for holding back,” Zhaban said jokingly. There was no malice in his words, eyes full of amusement at the memory, and Laris grinned.

“I wanted to kiss you again and that was the only reason I could think of.”

Zhaban leaned in and kissed her, hands coming up to her face. They were smiling too much to deepen it but Laris didn’t care. Out of everyone she had kissed, it had always felt best to kiss Zhaban, even back when they were teenagers. He rested his forehead against hers when they broke apart, eyes closed, with a peaceful smile.

“Do I still need more practice?” he teased, breaking the silence between them.

“Perfect,” Laris replied. “But there’s never any harm in more practice.”

He laughed and kissed her again, briefly, before picking her up and carrying against his chest to the bed where he laid her down. Laris pulled him down next to her before he could move away and climbed on top of him. She rubbed their noses together, smiling at how he shifted to hold her to him, and kissed him softly. 

“I’ve always loved practicing with you,” he said, caressing her cheek. 


	13. Year Thirteen

“You’ve checked that you packed everything?” Laris asked, peering into Zhaban’s bag to examine the contents. 

“Of course,” he replied, holding her arm and pulling her away with a fond smile. “It will be fine. It’s one weekend and we’ve already done all of the preparation work.”

The Admiral had agreed to give a lecture to the graduating class of a university, not uncommon, but there had been some safety concerns that meant Zhaban and Laris had insisted that at least one of them went with him, especially since Beverly was away. It had taken a lot of persuasion, and Beverly telling Jean-Luc to stop whining like a small child, but he had agreed for Zhaban to accompany him for the weekend. Laris was staying at home with the new puppy, named Number One to Kestra’s delight and her father’s slight disappointment.

“We’re out of practice and there’s no such thing as being too careful,” she reminded him. Zhaban fidgeted with the hem of her cardigan, pulling it down slightly and smoothing it. “You’ll message me when you’ve checked the rooms?”

“Yes,” he promised. “And I’ll call you in the evenings.”

“Going to miss me?”

“Tease all you want,” Zhaban laughed, “You’ll miss me too.”

“I will,” she agreed. Laris moved closer, hugging him softly, face pressed against his chest. “I don’t know how we ever managed spending all of those months apart. Three days is nothing in comparison and it still feels awful.”

“We’ve gone soft.”

“I quite like being soft.”

Zhaban rested his head on top of hers, kissing her temple, and took in a deep breath. Other than the occasional day trip, they’d barely spent a day apart since they arrived at the vineyard and the prospect of spending three days apart was slightly daunting. Laris held onto him a little tighter. 

“Come on, you’ll miss the shuttle if you don’t leave soon,” Laris said after a little while. They kissed deeply, foreheads resting together as they broke apart, before grabbing Zhaban’s bag and walking to the main room. 

It was another two minutes of waiting before Jean Luc joined them, carrying his own bag and with Number One on his heels. Laris scooped up the puppy into her arms, calming him down quickly, and checked that he was secure. Her and Jean-Luc hugged, Number One getting a few strokes on the head and told to listen to what Laris told him to do. Zhaban kissed her one last time, nuzzling her temple.

“I’ll message you when we arrive,” he promised.

“Looking forward to it,” she said. “Be careful.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Originally their plan for training Number One was to keep him off of the sofas, chairs and beds. By about nine in the evening, when Laris was done with her jobs, she was lying in bed with Number One resting on her stomach, scratching behind his ear. A message had come through from Zhaban a few hours before, telling her that they were settled and had dinner with some of the university’s staff. She’d given an update on the vineyard and they’d talked for a little while, until work had pulled them away again.

There was a beep to her side, alerting her to an incoming call. 

“Hello,” Zhaban said, his holographic face grinning widely. “I see Number One is keeping you company.”

“He was just desperate for attention earlier,” she replied, sitting up and keeping the puppy in her lap. “This seemed like the easiest solution. How did dinner go?”

“It was somewhat interesting,” he said. “There was the usual surprise of the Admiral employing a Romulan, especially a Northerner, but that faded pretty quickly. Most of the staff are still busy setting everything up and after the first half hour probably couldn’t care less.”

“That’s good,” Laris said. “No one’s giving you any problems then?”

“Just the odd dirty look, nothing out of the ordinary,” he shrugged before pausing slightly. “I miss you, Laris.”

“I miss you too,” she replied, laughing. “We’ve gone four months without contact before and now we can hardly last a day apart. How the mighty have fallen.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Zhaban woke up the next day to a message from Laris, starting her work day a little earlier than usual to pick up the odd jobs that he would normally do before breakfast, and a picture of Number One eating his breakfast. It had been difficult falling asleep the night before, so used to having Laris there in his arms, a constant reassuring presence, and had only managed a few hours. He grinned at the picture, the puppy usually only took food from Jean-Luc, before focusing back on the message from his wife. 

_ Morning chores all done, including all of your checks. Number One took a while to take his breakfast, I had to ask him in French eleven times before he even went near it. Struggled sleeping without you, looking forward to you coming home. I love you. _

He re-read it a dozen more times, committing it all to memory. It would have felt a little pathetic to miss someone so much after only a day but it was Laris,  _ his _ Laris, he was missing and that tended to throw any logic out of the window. He missed waking up next to her, having her being the first thing he saw in the morning, spending a few minutes at the start of the day holding her, quiet conversations and soft kisses. One morning without and he was already missing it all.

_ Just woke up. Was very happy to get your message and picture. I didn’t sleep particularly well either, I missed you too much. The Admiral has his speech this evening, finishing around half ten, I can call you after that if you are free. I love you and can’t wait to be home. _

  
  


<>

  
  


“How did the speech go?” Laris asked, lying in bed again. Zhaban was also in bed, in the hotel room the university had put him in, the admiral in the other room for security reasons. 

“It was well-received,” Zhaban replied, “The students were very excited to see the admiral. He had a lot of questions afterwards, thankfully no one brought up his leaving Starfleet, which he mostly handled well.”

“They’re university graduates; not as difficult as children,” she joked, burrowing deeper into his sweater. It was the one he had been wearing the day before he left, still smelling strongly of him, hopefully enough to help her sleep. 

Laris wanted him to be home, wanted him to be next to her in bed, or by the desk, or at the kitchen table, just with her, like they normally were. Messages and a call in the evening weren’t enough to stop her from missing him. She wanted to be able to reach out and hold him, to press a kiss to his forehead when they were finished talking, to hold his hand when they were alone, to lean against him as they were going through security footage. It felt similar to how it was before they were together; they could talk, they could see each other, they were always close, but she couldn’t be with him like she wanted to. 

“I miss you so much,” Zhaban admitted. “I know I’ll be home this time tomorrow but it doesn’t feel soon enough. I just want you now.”

“I miss you too,” she said. “Not sure how well I’ll sleep tonight. Used to not struggle at all when we were apart, now I can barely lie still.”

“We’re used to being together,” he suggested. “If we didn’t sleep every time we were apart before, we probably would have died of sleep deprivation before we even got married.”

“Probably,” Laris agreed. “We can manage one more night, I’m sure. Won’t be pleasant, but we’ve done lots of unpleasant things apart.”

“Done lots of pleasant things together, as well.”

Laris laughed, feeling the tips of her ears flush slightly. It would be just about visible on the call but Zhaban would know even if it wasn’t. He’d always managed to make her blush, and that was a difficult task, even when she did everything she could to not. When they were children she thought it was something that friends did around each other, because Zhaban blushed around her just as much and they were only friends with each other, but as she got older she knew it was a sign of her feelings for him and for a brief while she hated it. After they had gotten together, Laris found she liked it more, especially when Zhaban followed up on making her blush by kissing all along her ears and cheeks until she was bright green.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, “And I’m sure we can find time for some more pleasant things at some point.”

  
  


<>

  
  


“I’ve missed kissing you,” Zhaban whispered against her neck, one hand stroking through her hair, the other on her waist, holding her close. He kissed a path from the juncture of her neck and shoulder to the tip of her ear and all the way back to her mouth. “I’ve missed everything about you.”

“I missed you too,” she replied, clinging tightly to his back, not allowing him to move away from her, not that Zhaban wanted to. His beard scratched against her cheek slightly, like it always did, but she’d missed him too much to even joke about it, not wanting to pull away for even a second. 

They were pressed up against the door of their room, only just managing to make it there before Zhaban had given in and kissed his wife, Jean Luc having gone straight to bed upon arriving and leaving them alone. Laris’ back was pressed up against it, knees going a little weak as he kissed her, and she nuzzled into the crook of his neck in the way that made him let out a little whine. Zhaban put his hands on her waist, lifting her up, and Laris immediately wrapped her legs around him, grinning.

He carried her over to the bed, lying them both down, and moved so they were facing each other, noses brushing together. Laris kissed his forehead before going back to gazing into his eyes, unable to look away for long. The most detailed holographic image wouldn’t be a good enough match, wouldn’t be enough to stop the longing in her for more. 

“I love you so much,” she whispered. 

“I love you too. So much.”


	14. Year Fourteen

Laris wasn’t sure, at first, of what woke her up. 

The bedroom was empty, none of the security alerts had gone off, there was no gut feeling that there was someone in the house, something that had saved her life more than a dozen times over when working with the Tal Shiar, something she trusted more than most security systems. She felt slightly tense, like something was wrong, but Zhaban wasn’t awake, despite normally having the same gut feelings she did. 

He moved in his sleep, movements jerky, eyelids fluttering, his skin flushed and clammy. Despite how he was moving, he still held onto her but his grip had grown lax, legs kicking slightly outwards instead of entwined with hers, head resting on his chest instead of by hers. Laris felt her heartbeat speed up in fear, reaching out for him instinctively. 

“Zhaban?” she asked quietly, pulling back slightly, examining him carefully. There weren’t any injuries, no sign of illness beyond his raised temperature. “Zhaban?”

He jerked again, this time away from her, hands balling in the sheets, crying out quietly. A nightmare. A bad one, from the looks of it. Laris reached out and tried to get his hands to let go of the sheets, taking them in her own. He still wasn’t waking up, becoming even more scared, thrashing even more.

“Zhaban, Zhaban, I need you to wake up,” Laris said, cupping his cheek. “Zhaban, it’s a nightmare. You need to wake up. You’re safe, I promise. You’re with me and we’re safe. I just need you to wake up.”

Zhaban thrashed again, eyes not opening, and whimpered. They’d both had nightmares before, Zhaban more than she did, but every time it terrified Laris. An enemy to fight was fine, she knew what to do then, she knew how to keep him safe, it was something she could do blindfolded and with her hands behind her back. She  _ had _ done it blindfolded and with her hands behind her back. But when Zhaban had a nightmare, there was no one to fight, no easy solution, and she felt helpless trying to make him feel better.

“I promise, you’re okay, we’re safe, we’re together,” she continued, stroking his cheek, kissing his forehead. “You need to wake up, Zhaban, I promise you’re safe. I’d never lie to you.”

“Laris,” he cried out weakly, thrashing. “No, please, please not her. No, no, please!”

“You’re safe, Zhaban,” she insisted, stroking over his forehead. “Zhaban, wake up.”

He continued to thrash, crying out and speaking in gibberish until eventually his eyes snapped open, wide with fear. For a few moments he looked at her with no recognition, a terrifying few moments, but then there was a spark and he collapsed into her waiting arms, curling up into her and clinging to her shirt as he hyperventilated. Laris held him tightly, rubbing up and down his back in the way that had always calmed him down, and kissed his temple, muttering sweet nothings. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “We’re safe, we’re together. I’ve got you.”

It felt like hours, though it might have only been minutes, but Zhaban’s breathing evened out, the tears stopped falling and he stopped trembling. Laris didn’t let go, not wanting him to get scared again, wanting to keep him safe from any horrors that might still be haunting him. 

“I’ve got you,” Laris said again, rubbing small circles against his back. “I’ve got you.”

“Love you,” he whispered, voice hoarse from crying. 

“I love you too, Zhaban.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay, I promise. Do you want to try to go back to sleep? Do you think you can?”

“I can try. You’ll still be here?”

“Always.”

Laris stayed awake the rest of the night until the sun came out, listening to her husband’s breathing, her hand over his heart, holding him. A little while after Zhaban woke up, he fell asleep again, exhausted from the nightmare, sleeping peacefully. He was still curled around her and she stroked over his ridges every so often, gently, so as not to wake him up again. When the alarm went off, his eyes opened slowly like they did every morning. 

“Feeling better?” she asked. He would know she hadn’t slept since they first woke up, there was no point mentioning it. “You seemed like you slept a little better.”

“I’m okay,” Zhaban replied, not moving away. “A little shaky, but okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not yet, but soon, I promise.”

They stayed in bed a little longer, feeling comfort in the way that they held each other, something they had always been able to rely upon. Laris could remember from when they were young, barely even teenagers, when one of them had a nightmare, the other would join them in bed until they felt safe enough to sleep. When they got a little older and any hint of something like a relationship together would have put them in danger, both because of their jobs and their fear of confessing their true feelings, they kept that tradition, unwilling to break it for the world. 

  
  


<>

  
  


Over the next few days, Laris was careful around Zhaban, giving him reassuring touches as they passed, kissing his temple when they were close, reaching out for him when they were near. He responded to the touches the same way he always did, though they were far more frequent than normal, leaning into them, kissing her back, smiling that little smile just for her. But he held her tightly when they went to bed, and still wouldn’t talk about the nightmare. It always took a while for either of them to feel safe enough to do so, not wanting to burden the other with whatever was upsetting them but giving in quickly enough. This nightmare was taking a little longer.

She didn’t want to push, didn’t want to make him think about it all if he didn’t feel ready to deal with it, but Laris worried anyway and she knew he could tell. It couldn’t make him feel any better but Laris couldn’t help it; they had spent most of their lives together, she could barely remember a time without him, and it meant they were finely attuned to how the other was feeling, for better or for worse. Zhaban didn’t mention it, there was a lot between them that could go unspoken but understood, and so Laris knew she just had to wait for him to feel ready, however long it took.

They were watching the security feed a week later, Laris leaning against Zhaban’s shoulder whilst he played with her fingers absentmindedly, when he started talking about it.

“It was the Arrael mission,” he began slowly, bringing her hand up to kiss. “When we were taken in to infiltrate them.”

Laris remained quiet, still leaning on his side, stroking her thumb over the back of his hand. She remembered the Arrael mission very clearly. It was one of their earlier missions, no longer rookies but nowhere near as high ranking as they had become later on. They were purposefully captured to get inside one of the enemy’s buildings, supposed to break out once left alone and retrieve some important data, sneaking out before anyone realised the prisoners were gone. Something had gone wrong, Laris could no longer remember much, and she had been captured, properly captured, leaving her alone with an interrogator. She’d killed him after only a few hours, escaping the room and meeting up with Zhaban at the rendez-vous point just in time, but it had been close.

“And I know you were okay afterwards,” Zhaban continued. “But in the dream, you weren’t. In the dream, we were both captured and I was watching them hurt you and I couldn’t help you and I failed you and-”

“You’ve never failed me, Zhaban,” she interrupted, turning to face her husband, cupping his cheek and turning his head to look at her. After a second’s hesitation, he lifted his eyes from the ground and met hers. “Never, Zhaban. Not once. Not on that mission, not on any other mission,  _ never _ .”

“You still got hurt,” he pointed out, hand going to her hip where the faint line of a scar lay.

It was pale, so pale that unless you were truly looking for the scar, you couldn’t see it and only there because the dermal regenerator they had used died halfway through healing her. Zhaban had fixed her as best he could afterwards, using his jumper as bandages and it had healed enough by the time they arrived home that she hadn’t bothered removing the scar. 

“And I still got back to you,” Laris said, “And you still healed me. See, you didn’t fail me.”

He was silent for a while, thinking over her words, trying to come up with an argument against it. Laris could see it in his eyes, the fear that he had failed her warring with the logic that he hadn’t, that he’d done everything he could and that, all these years later, they were still together. Eventually Zhaban relented, bowing his head before moving to kiss her cheek. 

“It still feels like I did,” he said quietly. “In the dream, it felt like I had failed you, they had … they killed you and I couldn’t save you, I hadn’t told you I loved you, I hadn’t kept you safe like I promised I would.”

“That’s okay,” she replied. “It’s just a fear, it’s not the truth. You didn’t fail me, I’m still here and you’ve told me you love me so many times, Zhaban. And whenever that fear happens, I’ll be here to tell you it’s not true.”

She slipped off of her chair and climbed carefully into his lap, pulling him into a hug, rubbing the back of his neck until all of the tension in his body had leaked out. Zhaban held her close, nuzzling into her temple with a small smile, and let out a contented sigh. 

“Thank you.”

“I’m always here, Zhaban.”

  
  


<>

  
  


The next morning, Laris woke up a few minutes before the alarm went off, as normal, to Zhaban stroking the scar on her hip, pressing light kisses all over her face. She grinned at him as she opened her eyes, capturing his mouth in a soft kiss. There was still a little bit of guilt in his eyes but there was also a smile on his face and so much adoration that Laris felt her stomach flip over. 

“Morning,” he said, rubbing their noses together. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she replied, kissing him again, unable to hold herself back. “You seem happier.”

“I realised I’ve always got you,” Zhaban told her simply. “And you’ve always got me. There’s not much to be scared of when that’s true.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a bit of angst but I tried to end it on more of a happy note


	15. Year Fifteen

Zhaban was sat on the floor, Number One in front of him, panting excitedly, tongue lolling out. They’d been working on commands for almost an hour, with very little success. The dog knew how to sit, that had been the first command he’d needed to learn, but he wasn’t very good at dropping things he wasn’t supposed to have and staying still when told. Zhaban wasn’t very good at training dogs, he was beginning to suspect.

Echo had been easy to train, had done everything Laris told her to and since he spent most of his time with Laris, they’d never had a problem with each other. Number One, he was worried he would have problems with.

“Still won’t stop eating your apron?” Laris asked, coming back from the market with a few bags laid on the counter. 

“No, he won’t,” Zhaban sighed, giving in and letting Number One play with a squeaky toy by himself. He stood up and went to help his wife unpack the shopping, kissing her cheek in greeting. “I can’t distract him, I can’t make him stop, I can just about make him give it back to me.”

“Are you asking in French?”

“I’m asking in every language we speak in the house, he still won’t listen.”

“Well, French has never been your strong suit, maybe he just can’t understand you?” Laris teased. It was entirely a joke. She wasn’t bad at languages, she understood everything she needed to whilst at the Tal Shiar, could crack codes in almost any language if given enough time, but Zhaban was naturally very good with them. French in particular.

“Very funny,” he replied, hands going to her waist, pinching slightly. She laughed. “If he can understand you butchering the word for ‘sit’ every time you said it for the first three months of having him, he can understand me giving him a couple of simple commands with a perfectly acceptable accent.”

“You were the most feared trainer a recruit could get and now you can’t even get a dog to obey you,” she said, grinning at him. “How the mighty have fallen.”

“Recruits have common sense.”

“Not what you used to say.”

Zhaban kissed the tip of her nose before turning around at the growling sound behind them. Number One had abandoned his squeaky toy, something Zhaban would have taken notice of earlier if it wasn’t for the fact that his wife was in the room, in his arms, and had managed to catch a small bird in his mouth in the few minutes they had been distracted. He could do that, but he couldn’t learn to leave Zhaban’s apron alone when asked. 

“What have you got there, hm?” Laris cooed, calling the dog over. He responded dutifully, showing off his kill. “There’s a good boy. A very good recruit, a kill on your first mission. We’ll make an assassin of you yet. Well, maybe Zhaban won’t, but I’ll help.”

“You’re going to train the dog to hunt birds, are you?”

“Well, I never had to deal with many recruits, I could do with the practice.”

“You never had many recruits because you were considered too harsh,” Zhaban reminded her with a fond smile. “The harsh secret police of a harsh secretive civilisation and you were considered too much for even them. It’s practically a badge of honour.”

“And I wore it with pride,” she agreed, kissing him softly. “I’m going to go and get a treat for the dog.”

Laris walked off into the other room, they didn’t keep dog treats in the kitchen after the admiral, multiple times, had had a very surprising midnight snack, and Zhaban turned to face Number One, face stern.

“She’s only spoiling you for now, you know. You shouldn’t get too used to it, she’ll be training you how to jump through hoops if you let your guard down.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Laris did not start teaching Number One how to jump through hoops but the dog eventually learned to obey Zhaban, most of the time, and he eventually stopped chewing on Zhaban’s apron, most of the time. But it was enough for him, so he was happy and somewhat proud of the dog for managing that. The dog did, however, learn that he got the most attention and affection from Laris when he captured a dead animal and so, most mornings, gleefully deposited a dead bird or mouse, slightly mangled, in front of her and received pets and treats for his efforts. 

“How can you eat when he’s just put a dead bird in front of you?” Zhaban asked her, looking at his plate a little uncomfortably. 

“It’s not that bad, we’ve eaten breakfast in front of corpses lots of times before.”

“Not willingly, Laris,  _ never  _ willingly.”

“If the dead bird is really putting you off your breakfast so much, I can put it away if you’d like.”

“Yes, please.”

Laris carefully wrapped the bird up in a napkin, putting it in the bin, making sure that Number One could see her taking it, scratching behind his ear. She put her plate away, having had no problem finishing her meal, unlike her husband, and washed up, returning with mugs of tea for the both of them. Zhaban took it gratefully.

It was one of the quieter mornings, when their morning jobs were much smaller than they were at busier times of the year, meaning they had a little bit of time to relax before they started the day. Laris moved her chair closer to Zhaban’s, resting her head on his shoulder, taking his hand and stroking over the back of it with her thumb. Number One settled at their feet, content to just lie there for a little while, breathing calmly. She shifted slightly and kissed his neck affectionately. 

“It’s looking like it will be a good day,” Zhaban said. “Nice and warm, but not too bright. I think we’ll only need about two layers, maybe only one depending how difficult the West side fence is to fix.”

“If you get to it early enough, it shouldn’t be too bad,” Laris replied. “I can take over setting up the cameras if you want to get to it before lunch.”

“That sounds like a plan,” he agreed. “I can lay out the new wires whilst I’m doing it.”

They went back to their room to collect their supplies. Whilst the work on the vineyard was minimal at the moment, the admiral had agreed to an interview, for the first time since he had left Starfleet, at the house and so they were upgrading the security to ensure there would be no problems. Laris was adding additional cameras all over the house, ensuring that the locks on all of the doors worked, operating remotely from a collection of hidden panels as well as on the door, only opening for the house’s occupants, and continuing to run background checks on every member of staff that was involved in the interview, even if they weren’t going to the house. 

Zhaban, after fixing some of the fence, was laying wires all around the fence, laying traps and a place to activate a protective field around the vineyard, disguised from any prying eyes and undetectable. Beverly had taken Jean Luc to the Riker-Troi household to keep his mind off of the interview, to stop him from overthinking and backing out, since he had spent months debating whether or not he should agree. Kestra and Thad were keeping him very busy, bombarding him with questions, preparing him for the worst possible scenario of any interview.

“Do you get the feeling that the admiral is going to regret agreeing to do this interview?” Laris asked as she picked up the cameras, beginning to check the feeds to make sure they were all still operational. 

“I think that the admiral already regrets agreeing,” Zhaban replied but she could hear how his voice had gone slightly tense, despite the lightness of his words. “But we’ll be able to deal with any problems that it brings up.”

  
  


<>

  
  


Zhaban carefully picked out the tiny shards of glass from the back of his wife’s head, healing each newly revealed cut with every piece. The morning sun was beginning to rise, the admiral already gone away to save the supposed sister of the late Dahj Asha, investigating the Zhat Vash, and who knew what else, leaving them alone in the house with a downtrodden Number One. Their other injuries had been healed but the glass in the back of her head, after being slammed into one of the glass cabinets, was more complicated.

“Just taking out the last few bits,” he murmured, touch soft, fingers stained horrifically green. “Almost nothing left now.”

“Alright,” Laris sighed. It wasn’t a pleasant procedure, the skin numbed to pain but still able to feel the shards being removed. Her mild concussion had been healed first, the most pressing injury they had suffered between them, but it still left a slight headache. “Anything left on you?”

“No, most of their attention was on you and the admiral.”

“I feel so special,” she replied dryly. Zhaban pulled out the final shard, running one final scan to ensure he hadn’t missed anything else, before putting everything to the side. He washed his hand shakily, washing off his wife’s blood, and turned his attention back to Laris. She was watching him carefully, eyes full of sympathy. “I’m okay, Zhaban.”

“I know,” he said, leaning their foreheads together. “But I worry. It was a close call tonight.”

“But we survived. The admiral’s safe, Beverly’s safely off-planet for another few months, and we’re going to be low down on their priority list for at least a while. Enough to practice some more, prepare and get ready for anything else they might send against us.”

He understood the logic of her words, knew they had done well despite a decade and a half out of active service, but there was still a little bit of fear left in him, enhanced by the fact that he’d just cleaned Laris’ blood off of his hands. Laris cupped his cheek softly, kissing him. Zhaban melted into the touch, taking her hand in both of his. 

“I know,” Zhaban said. “We need to fix the alarms and the outside cameras.”

“Just a little bit longer,” she said, keeping the two of them together.

They’d lasted decades together, friends, partners, lovers and spouses, they could have a few minutes before they needed to move again, before they needed to fix the damage done and settle more into their old lives. Laris stroked over his cheek, over the beard she had slowly, so very slowly, grown to love, and kissed him again, savouring the feeling of safety and love it always brought on. 


End file.
